Marr, Melissa: Darkest Mercy
Darkest Mercy (2011)
Written by: Melissa Marr
Genre: YA/Paranormal Romance
Pages: 327 (ARC)
Series: Book Five (Final)
Disclaimer: free from author
Release Date: February 22, 2011
Why I Read It: I signed up for the blogger's copy of Marr's traveling advance reader's copy, even before I'd read Radiant Shadows. Why? Because I knew I'd be forced to read it in a timely manner rather than letting it collect dust on my shelf, and since it's the last installment of the series, I figured that'd be a good thing. So I started reading the instant I got the ARC and am reviewing it NOW so that I can pass it on the next person on the list.
The premise: ganked from the BN.com: The Summer King is missing; the Dark Court is bleeding; and a stranger walks the streets of Huntsdale, his presence signifying the deaths of powerful fey.
Aislinn tends to the Summer Court, searching for her absent king and yearning for Seth. Torn between his new queen and his old love, Keenan works from afar to strengthen his court against the coming war. Donia longs for fiery passion even as she coolly readies the Winter Court for battle. And Seth, sworn brother of the Dark King and heir to the High Queen, is about to make a mistake that could cost his life.
Love, despair, and betrayal ignite the Faery Courts, and in the final conflict, some will win . . . and some will lose everything.
Review style: what I liked and what I didn't, with a third section called "General Musings" that has be pondering the behind-the-scenes stuff of writing the series. Please note that this review SPOILS THE ENTIRE SERIES, so if you aren't caught up, save yourself and wait until you are. Then read the full review. Everyone else, skip to "My Rating."
Thumbs Up:
It's good to see everything come together in the final book. It really is. While I still have issues, I have to say I was happy with a lot that happened in terms of resolutions, most importantly the sacrifices Keenan finally had the balls to make. Giving up the whole of his Summer power to Aislinn so that he could be with Donia? Fabulous. I never saw that coming, and I think it was a brilliant move. Also brilliant was just how dedicated he was to her. He sacrificed close to everything, though I will say by the end, he's found a loophole to get most everything back (save for Summer, which was never really where his heart was anyway, so it worked out). I also adore how the book and the series ends with where the first book and start of the series began. With a vow to accept Winter's chill at a hawthorne bush and the test of the staff. That was wonderful, and it wasn't until this book that I realized how happy I was that Keenan and Donia could stay together. I was always rooting for Seth and Aislinn, mind you, and that worked out quite well too, but it wasn't as powerful as Keenan and Donia's story.
Though, I will say this, I quite liked that Seth was the damsel in distress in this book. Aislinn had to go rescue him, and that was awesome.
The Irial-Niall combo was pretty interesting, and what a way to do a three-way between them and Leslie (who's appearance was a little jarring, mostly because I haven't seen her in a while and I've lost my sense of her character), and it was far more effective than the weird pseudo three-way that was going on between Ani, Devlin and Rae in Radiant Shadows. I do like that Irial is now Discord, taking War's place, though I'm confused: does he have physical form now, outside of Niall? I think I read too fast . . .
The sea-fae, interesting and creepy. Far Dorcha and Ankou were also an interesting addition to the world-building, and I wish we'd seen them lurking in the previous installments, even though there was no reason for it. :)
Another plus is seeing Aislinn finally come into her own as faery queen. I loved seeing her embrace her court, her subjects, and feeling at ease with herself, her responsibility, and her desires. All I have to say is, it's about darn time!
Thumbs Down:
The summary quoted above promises that some will lose everything. Erm… not really? I mean, I take everything to mean EVERYTHING, and while some people come close, no one really loses anything of importance. All of the couples hook up properly, and while there are some admirable sacrifices, there's no regret on the part of any of the main characters. It's a thumbs down not because the summary is misleading, but because in a way, I wish Marr had taken it just a wee bit farther and done more than just kill supporting characters. I had the same problem with the conclusion of Stephenie Meyer's series in that Bella gets everything she wants without making any sacrifices, and that's too bad. Sacrifices are what defines you, and that's why Keenan's was so powerful.
But did anyone lose everything? Nope.
The timeline at the start of this book is really screwy. Some of the scenes I'm reading are directly out of Radiant Shadows except from another point of view, and that's annoying. Also annoying is that some characters seemed to forget events of the previous book, especially Niall. He knew that Rae stitched his and Irial's dreams together, but in this book, he doesn't get why he's having weird dreams. Niall's a whole other kettle of fish though, so I'll hold off on that criticism and rebuttal, save to say it really felt like people forgot what had happened in the previous book.
Why is it that faeries can't lie? I know this isn't something Marr's made up (or at least, I'm pretty sure I've heard of it before in faery lore), but all we get in this rendition is that they can't tell a lie. It's not a very powerful effect for me… speakers just stop speaking and say what they mean instead (or say something that's not a lie but still skirts the truth). We never get any visceral reaction to the attempt to lie, we never see consequences. Not in this book anyway. Maybe I've seen it in the previous books and I'm just not remembering right now. At any rate, the whole, "I can't tell a lie" bit really grated on me, because I wanted to know why, and I wanted to see the consequences when faeries tried to lie anyway.
Point of view was a little sloppy in this, but I'm hoping that's because I had an advanced reader's copy. In Chapter 17, we're in Keenan's point of view, yet a couple of pages in, there's the line, Without thinking of the consequences, she laid one hand on his stomach and her other on his arm. How does Keenan know she's not thinking of the consequences? He doesn't, and even an impulsive act doesn't meant the impulsive person isn't aware of the consequences, you know?
Niall. Oh, this guy annoyed the snot out of me. Sure, sure, he's grieving and unbalanced, I get that. But his and Seth's whole storyline had me rolling my eyes every time I got to their pages, and I was really ticked at how Seth wouldn't explain to Niall that the reason he was acting so weird was because Faery was closed, and that High Court no longer balanced him. To be fair, we find out that the bigger reason Niall was so crazy was that Irial was taking over his body, but . . . still… couldn't Seth had tried to convince Niall of this anyway, and Niall deny it, saying it was something more so that readers would have something to wonder about?
I also wondered at the convenience of things. Like how the Hunt suddenly knows when Donia needs aid. I would understand that her own court would sense her need, but the Hunt isn't part of her court, so how do they know? I also had the same problem here as I had with the last book: War shows up, threatens characters and tells them what to do and expects to be obeyed, but without anything really backing it up. She doesn't seduce her pawns, she just tells them what to do and expects them to do it, as if her vague threat of WAR and DISCORD is enough to bend them to her will. Let's face it, War is never really frightening, and saying she's crazy isn't enough to make me admire her as a character or a villain. No, instead she's a convenient point of conflict. We need action, bring in War and let the fur fly! This is where I really wish the series had been more tightly plotted, so that we could see War really manipulating the characters into achieving her desired outcome, only to fail when the characters realize their potential. Maybe if I re-read these books all at once, I'd see this happening, so I'm not going to say outright that Marr hasn't done this. But right now, it feels that way, which lessens the impact for what's at stake and what isn't.
But speaking of impact, I realized what one of my major disappointments with later installments has been: the first two books focused on very normal girls dealing with normal issues (okay, so Aislinn could see faeries, but she was also dealing with desire and sex for the first time and the fear of the partners not being right for her), and those issues were magnified in the course of the fantastic in the story. This is what I've already heard that Joss Whedon did with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, taking the metaphor of teen life and making it literal in many ways. Buffy might be killing vampires, but she was dealing with real life too, and the normal and the supernatural complimented each other (so I've heard, I've never watched the show).
That's what's missing in the last three books of the series: it's suddenly about who's taking over what court and what they'll have to do to hold on to said courts. And really, I never got the feeling that's what the series was about when I first started reading, but yet, now that the series is over, it is about "out with the old and in with the new" and what it takes to stay with your one true love. Okay, that doesn't sound wholly bad by any means, and I may appreciate it more when I re-read the series one day, but right now, I feel a tad bit let down, because the series doesn't end where it starts, which was really strong.
The various points of view got out of hand too. We got POVs we'd never seen before (that I remember) and frankly, POVs I'm not convinced we needed. Then again, my preference tends to be for fewer points of view and tighter stories, and when so many characters are telling the story, the tension gets lost. That's a movie/television story-telling device, at least as it's used here, rather than a really compelling narrative device. Sure, it's great that this final book brings all the points of view back together from previous books (except we don't get Leslie or Ani or Devlin), but it's a total of at least seven different points of view, and the advanced reader's copy is only 327 pages. Maybe there should be a rule: no more than one point of view for every one hundred pages! So a book like this would have a maximum of three different POV's to work with, whereas someone like George R.R. Martin, whose books could kill a small child if chucked at said child's head, could have anywhere from eight to ten.
I like this new rule! I should start a writing workshop!
*coughs*
Sorry, I'll stop with the delusions of grandeur. But seriously, too many points of view. I wish Marr had pushed herself to use the more important perspectives to give us the same scenes.
I do have to ask: short of closing Faery, Devlin and Ani had absolutely no role in this book whatsoever, and that was frustrating. I mean, really, after the huge-big deal made in Radiant Shadows about how important Ani was, she didn't have any bearing on the big climatic battle, and that's unfortunate. I was rather hoping we'd see all the regents of all the courts combine their power to defeat War (like something out of Captain Planet), but that's not as disappointing as seeing a cast of characters that had a whole book devoted to them have nothing to do at the end.
Marr also has a moment of preaching that jumps out a bit. Chapter 39: War was always contemptible, but war for no reason other than greed was unforgivable.
Okay, so war is almost always about greed. Which makes the above sentence way too heavy-handed and obvious. Maybe not for YA readers, but I'd like to give them more credit than that . . . there's definitely nothing subtle about the character of War, which is too bad, as that subtlety might've been what she needed to be more interesting (rather than a walking billboard for why WAR IS BAD).
General Musings:
I have to wonder about the creation of this series. Perhaps if I followed Marr's blog more closely, I'd already know this, but I get the impression that perhaps Marr had the idea for her first book polished and ready to go, and maybe the second, but that perhaps the rest of the series wasn't quite as solid in her head because she didn't have as much time to develop the story. I mean, let's face it: a book a year is hard, and I'm not speaking flippantly. I've had to write a whole book (science fiction novel) in LESS than a year in order to meet my thesis deadline, and that sucker ended up being 130K words. So yeah, I can say that writing a book in a year is HARD, and just because Marr's writing YA doesn't make it any easier, because getting the plot to work as well on the page as it does on the page isn't easy no matter how short the book is.
But whether or not Marr had all of this outlined ahead of time or not (and I'm guessing she had the first, maybe second book outlined and then got a contract for more and maybe had to brainstorm on the fly, maybe) doesn't change the fact that I think turning out a book a year hasn't been kind to her. I mean, hey, I'm sure her books are selling and she's doing fine (though I have no evidence either way), but some authors don't do well with a book a year, and it always shows in the prose and/or development of the book. When things feel rushed book after book after book, I think it's safe to say that perhaps the writer needed more time to make sure the book was in the right shape before publication.
But that's my thought. There's no shame in not being able to churn out a book a year, especially if the wait means a better novel (though, of course, some authors make that wait and turn it into a tortuous art form). I'm really looking forward to Marr's adult debut because it's easy to guess she's had more time to put into it (though maybe she hasn't), and I'm hoping to see some of the magic back that captured me so in Wicked Lovely. But we'll see. :)
My Rating
Worth Reading, with Reservations: The book, let alone the series, ends on a high note. I really like how Marr brings her characters together and shows how they're able to work together. I also like the sacrifices that some characters make in order to get what they really want. Marr surprised me with these sacrifices, and she also turns the whole damsel-in-distress on its head a little, which is fun. I still feel this book doesn't have quite the same punch as the start of the series, but it's worth reading for longtime fans for the closure, especially to see how things work out for Aislinn, Keenan, Seth, Donia, Leslie, Niall, and Irial. There are some memorable moments in this book, far more memorable than any in books three and four, so if you're a fan of the series, I think you'll be satisfied with this ending.
Preferred Format: I still say I've committed to collecting series in hardcover, and let's face it, they are gorgeous. Even though I've already read this, I'll probably go ahead and pick this up just to complete my collection so that one day, I can re-read the series and see how it flows when you can read it as one GIANT book rather than one-a-year installments. That said, depending on how you feel about the quality of the series (and how much of a hardcore collector you are), you may not have any trouble getting this in trade paperback or as an e-book.
Overall Thoughts on Series: I'll be honest: in truth, I really believe you can read the first book, Wicked Lovely, and be done. It ends well, it does something different with the YA love story, and it totally worth reading. Then again, I haven't read this book since its debut back in . . . 2007? Whenever this came out, it's been a while since I've read it, and more recent readers of the book can reaffirm whether or not Wicked Lovely can be read as a stand-alone. And in truth, one could also get away with going as far as Ink Exchange and stopping, because once you get to the third book, things get messy and weak and the plotting isn't as strong as the previous two installments, and that's where the series suffers. Yes, it ends on a high and memorable note, but the overall quality never really comes back to what we see at the very start. Still, I want to see just how much time between reading installments has truly effected my enjoyment and perception of the strength of plotting. I suspect that these books are better enjoyed if read in close succession to each other, though I suspect there will still be flaws. That said, I still want to re-read this series one day, just to see how it works as a whole rather than waiting a year or each new book. I do wonder just how much stronger this series could've been had it been a traditional trilogy, but that's a consideration for a re-read. And I stress, I do want to re-read. The series had a whole has its flaws, but it's smooth and easy reading and I enjoyed it all the same.
Cover Commentary: I adore these covers. I mean, I don't think there's been a one I haven't liked, but this one is gorgeous, and I love the coloring and the detail of the flower. :)
Next up: Antarctica: A Call to Action by Sebastian Copeland