The Wall by
Lauren Nicolle Taylor My rating:
3 of 5 stars 3 stars. Usually this means that a person moderately liked a book, and I did moderately like this one, but 3 stars after my review of the first book in this series (5 stars) is so much of a let down. I raved about Book 1, sat down and read it in 2 sessions, then immediately started looking for the second. The first book left me wanting more in a great way. I was engaged in the characters, immersed in the story, and the whole package generated a drive in me to move forward. I can't stay enough good things about that book!!!
Unfortunately, Book 2 is *not* Book 1, so let me focus in here. One of the things I praised highly in the first installment was the author's ability to encapsulate a moderately complete story within the first book. The overarching story was also well developed, and that's what led to the desire for the second. This book on the other hand, did not contain it's own plot, but rather served simply to give some background on the Survivors camp (limited at that), developing the main pairing, and the last 10 pages were used to set up the final book. That's it. This entire book could have been condensed and edited down to a short prologue on Book 1 and a preface on Book 3. There was zero need for The Wall to garner it's own cover and publication, except for the fact that it forced this series into the coveted trilogy.
I am still looking forward to the third book, simply as answers to those posed in the first. Past that, I hope that modern authors take a look at the framework of works past; trilogies, series, loosely related collections, etc, (Such as Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern or Tower and the Hive series) and see that works within a series still have to be complete in their own rights, because this new trend is becoming quite the let down to those of us who sit down to read a book - not just a stretched out fluffer for the next installment.
For now, I am going to let this one sit till I have the time to come back to Book 3. I've lost that rush and pull that a good author leaves me feeling. While I do care about "what happens next," I've lost the urgency I had to find out now - it will be there when I get to it.
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