Obsessed with the latest Sherrilyn Kenyon book...

[dangermousie]

My life has been taken over by Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Styxx, which is book number eight bazillion in her Dark Hunters series, is 836 pages long (you could use it as a murder weapon!) and is the first DH book I have read since Acheron, which came out in 2008, was also a gazillion pages long, and had enough angst and suffering to trigger mass depression

Comments

[dangermousie]

This is a much better book than Acheron, I think. I mean, I love Ash as a character, but due to the constraints of the narrative she couldn't really do much about his past and so the unrelenting abuse got a bit much, not because of the level of abuse but because the critical part of hurt/comfort is to have some comfort for the hurt! With Styxx, because we don't know anywhere nearly as much about his life, she was free to do a narrative she wanted, I think, and I tend to think of Styxx as sort of Acheron with all the parts I didn't like fixed. I mean, there is plenty of patented Kenyon torture, but this time the h/c has breaks (and he gets to hit back, both in personal and military ways) and, more importantly, the 'comfort' component is there - Styxx has a mentor who loves him, Bethany is awesome as an OTP, and he gets interludes with her that periodically get to fix his damage.

Plus, I get what I so desperately wanted in Acheron and didn't get - a heroine that truly gets him and his issues and his past and is even there for most of it. I confess I never did warm up to Tory and she was one of my biggest problems with Acheron as a novel. My favorite hero got such a lame heroine and one who I felt never truly got him. I mean, she's OK and Ash is happy with her (and he probably loves her because she's so vanilla and because she really doesn't get his past, not truly), so fine, but as a character, she just doesn't do it for me at all. One of the reasons I loved Born of Silence so much is because I sort of saw it as 'Acheron in space' only with proper h/c balance and an awesome heroine. Styxxx is like that for me - it's 'Acheron as I would have wanted it.' (Actually, if you read/liked Born of Silence, that's a pretty good indication that you'd like Styxx. If not - no idea).

[world_of_blade]

I did like Born of Silence, so I guess I should give Styxx a try. I also totally agree with you about Tory. She made me roll my eyes a lot.

[dangermousie]

Honestly, I am still sad my favorite Kenyon character got such a boring OTP. I wanted someone more involved and cooler...Tory was pretty blah.