I've taken a look at the first Spires book, so it's only fitting to continue my look into the trilogy after me recently receiving the second book! Spoilers ahead.
The Madness keeps the Solum pack from losing prey, and more and more patrols just up and vanish. While this is going on, the Solum Alpha decides to take in Step and train him as the new to-be Alpha. Step is willing to do anything to make his pack survive the harsh circumstances, but things prove to be a whole lot tougher when a presumed-dead Duke shows up, now in control of another pack and ready to enact his revenge.
This was just a thrill ride from start to finish. The suspense was definitely real. I had a lot of fun reading this story and I had legit no clue where things were going most of the time. I'm just really interested in this post-apocalyptic world and the pack cultures and superpowers the dogs can have (called "gifts").
The characters are still not the most interesting out there, but they're not bad by any means either. You still root for them and want to see them succeed. Step is developing pretty well into a good to-be leader after Charles will be gone, and I liked Hope and Auburn still, though they're notably less present in this book than the former. One character I in particular found me attaching myself to was Flare, I really hope she somehow survived what fate Duke wanted to give her. I just really liked her spunky attitude and chemistry with Step. I don't quite ship them, but they were definitely enjoyable in their banter.
One character whose development I genuinely didn't see coming was Malcolm, now renamed the Doctor. He went from a caring father and mate to a depraved cannibal who is willing to do anything just to put an end to the Madness. And I mean anything. He eats dogs, he kills them, he preforms vivisection on them while they're alive, he partially skins them. I did not expect the book to become this dark, I genuinely felt sick on multiple occasions while reading, and I usually have a very strong stomach. So, yeah, props to Summers for achieving such a horrifyingly dark book that genuinely creeped me out.
That said, if animal harm/death is not for you, I'd recommend skipping this one, as well as if you're young. Book one was somewhat ambiguous at which age group it was targeting, but this is definitely a young adult book at the very least.
But even the horror elements aside, this was a genuinely great book. I did have some tiny issues with it, though. I counted at least one typo in my copy and the formatting of the paperback was a bit awkward, with there at the end of a chapter often being a blank page sans one or two words, that just didn't look very professional as I've yet to see that in any other book.
Yet those are tiny nitpicks. If you can handle the subject matter, I definitely recommend this book series. I can't wait to see how the first trilogy concludes in book three.
No comments:
Post a Comment