Everything hangs in the balance,
and nothing is certain: Rachel has been kidnapped by enemy forces and is being
taken to Rowansmark while Logan, imprisoned and awaiting trial, is unable to
leave Lankenshire. Separated from each other and their Baalboden comrades, each
must find a way to achieve what they desperately want: to rid their world once
and for all of the Commander and the tech that controls the deadly Cursed One.
Fighting through her pain and
embracing the warrior she’s become, Rachel will do whatever it takes to escape
her enemies’ clutches and join Logan in his fight. But when she learns a secret
that changes everything, she realizes that escaping Ian and his tracker friends
is no longer an option if she wants to save the people she loves. Instead,
she’ll have to destroy Rowansmark from the inside out—if she can survive the
journey through the Wasteland.
Logan needs allies if he wants to
thwart Rowansmark’s power grab and rescue Rachel. But securing allies will mean
betraying his beliefs and enlisting the help of the man he hates more than
anyone: Commander Jason Chase. Driven by his fierce love for Rachel and his
determination to make their world safe, Logan may be just the weapon the
city-states need to defeat the Cursed One.
But as Rowansmark bears down and
uneasy alliances are tested, will Rachel and Logan’s love for each other be
enough to surmount the unbelievable odds against them?
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Review:
As with all the books I have
read, I have both praises and light criticisms for this one.
I love this series. When I first saw
Defiance in my local bookstore, the cover lured me in. After reading the
summary in the back, I didn’t go out of the bookstore without that title with
me. I have been following this series since the first year it started, and may
I just rant for a moment because waiting for all the books to come out is pure
torture. That’s two years of waiting, folks. Two fricking years. For a
bookworm, that is pure agony.
Anyway, the first two books did
not disappoint, therefore driving my interest to read this final book. I am
happy to say that Deliverance did not
let me down, either. It is full of surprises and unexpected turns that when I
thought I had it figured out, something suddenly happens to throw me off guard.
I liked the anticipation it built while I was reading, especially when I was
nearing the climax and everything was about to go to the deepest pit of the tanniyins’ nest (not literally). For a
moment there I thought I was going to palpitate from the anticipation and
nervousness that everything would go downhill.
The plot is slow-paced, but the
thing I liked about it is I didn’t feel bored. I didn’t feel like I was
agonizing over the chapters. Sure, I was impatient in some parts but mostly I
just enjoyed every turn of events. As I’ve said, this book has a lot of
surprises and unexpected turns and those kept it interesting for me and kept me
from being bored. The unveiled mysteries and unanswered questions in the past
two books were slowly and precisely revealed in this final installment of the
series, and I enjoyed watching it unfold before me.
I also liked C. J. Redwine’s
style. The way the characters narrate the exact details made it so much easier
to imagine the scenes. It’s like 3D in my brain.
Some characters have stayed with
me. Three books down in the series but I am still somehow detached from Logan
or Rachel. Quinn and Willow are another story, though. They are a very strong
secondary character. I have a fetish for secondary characters sometimes that I
wish they would be the center of the story. Connor, too. He’s an unexpected
addition to the team but I like his wit and intelligence (or it might be
because he has a passion for books and it struck my soft spot).
Here come the parts I wasn’t fond
of.
First, for a YA novel, the
characters are talking about murder and violence way too much. I imagine, even
in action-packed fantasy novels, we don’t want the young adult readers to enjoy
too much violence, even in books. I understand that it is part of the story,
but maybe it shouldn’t have been labeled as YA. I know the readers are not stupid,
but there is just something off in young adults enjoying a violent read.
Second, Logan and Rachel’s “voices”
are alike most of the time. They have almost the same goal, the same people
they hate, and the same people they want to see dead, so the “tone” of the
narrations is getting similar. Sometimes, I find Rachel being too detached and Logan’s
“voice” bordering on girly. I’m not
fond of different POVs with similar “voices”.
Third, I didn’t like Rachel’s character
development. Yes, she has come a long way from Defiance and she has learned a lot of lessons along the way, but I
didn’t like the way she always put the blame to someone. She kept blaming
others for the things that are happening to her now when she’d had the choice
to do differently. I don’t know why she didn’t realize that she played a big
part in the mess they were in now with the choices she did in the past. She
gave the impression of too stubborn and too proud to admit her mistakes by acknowledging
her “wrong” decisions. Logan got a little annoying at times, too. However,
unlike Rachel, this guy takes all the blame.
This journey with Rachel and
Logan and their team has been an enjoyable one, and I am sad that the series
has ended (though I am also happy that there is no more book to wait a year
for!). Despite the parts I didn’t like, this is a satisfying conclusion of the
Defiance Trilogy. I hope the author decides to write a novella about Quinn
(again) or Willow this time, or maybe Connor. Just a little something for old
times’ sake. ;)
~ Zee
