The Book of Life starts a lot quicker than the first two, and by that I mean it gained momentum and started immersing us in the plot straight after the first few chapters of reintroducing us to Diana and Matthew's current situation and reuniting them with all the characters they left behind in the present day. Harkness' writing definitely improved with this one as she wove the plot with the various characters daily lives a lot more smoothly so that they weren't separated into chunks that didn't mesh well together. In fact, I did find myself thinking that it was very likely 80% of the book would be spent on Diana's pregnancy experience and 20% actually story development and I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case. I will say I did find parts of the chapter where Diana is in labour amusing.
A lot of the bulk of these books is to do with the research side of things, with finding the right historical and creature texts to find the secrets of their existence. I found that the research was a lot more meaningful and was written a lot better too. There was a lot of research that Diana and Matthew were doing independently in A Discovery of Witches that often seemed irrelevant with the way it was written and felt like filler material with the way it was written. When that research was mentioned early on in The Book of Life, it was written better in that it actually seemed interesting and felt like it was there for a purpose even before we were told why it was so important. And it provides a lot of answers which makes it so much more worthwhile.
If there is a character my view of changed a lot over the course of this book, it is the head of the de Clermont family - Balwin. At the start of the book, he was unlikeable and a constant familial thorn in the side of the Bishop-Clairmont family. By the end of the book, however, he does become a better character, you see that the actions he takes are because he feels he is duty-bound to lead in a certain manner which is sticking to the rules in order to serve his family. He isn't completely likeable by the end but he isn't unlikeable anymore.
You also get a brief introduction at the beginning, and a little at the end, to one of Phillipe's fearsome daughters - Verin. Despite the reputation Phillipe's daughters have, I found myself very unimpressed with the lack of being shown or feeling this reputation was well earned as we have only been told about it. This leads to one of the things that frustrate me most with this trilogy - the lack of presence of the female members of the de Clermont family. There has been such a large presence of the male members that it feels like the women of the family, aside from Ysabeau, aren't important. We met Louisa in Elizabethan England only for her to be an antagonist, tortured and then forced to disappear. Then we meet Verin very briefly at the beginning only for her to disappear completely until the big showdown at the end and even then she is one of the least present characters in those chapters. Going forward, I would like to get to know the women of the family more, I'd like to meet Freyja and Anastasia and find out what they're like. I want to feel that fearsome reputation they supposedly have come off the pages.
Benjamin Fox - the most twisted opponent Diana and Matthew have faced so far. It is impossible not to despise every part of Benjamin and it is a cruel twist of fate that Matthew has to recognise him as his son in order to recognise the offspring that came from him - and let me tell you from now, there are members of Benjamin's offspring that are very important. Every time there was mention of him or something he had done, my skin crawled with the pain he'd caused with his insanity. In Benjamin, you see what blood rage can do to a vampire unchecked.
Though Benjamin's antagonism was important to the plot of the finale, I feel like there could have been a stronger presence of the villainous element of this book. I found myself wanting more of the opponent than we got, considering how long the books are I would have expected to see more of them than we did. It did not come as a surprise which members of the Congregation had been working with Benjamin but I would have liked to see more of that too, more of how it played into how things would unfold and play out. I feel like I barely got a chance to process who his allies had been and what they had been doing because it was over so quickly. With a book that has its characters so concerned with what a certain few other powerful people might do to them, I fail to feel the threat because it often feels like it isn't there.
Reasons to Recommend:
- A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy
- There are answers to just about everything at last in this book
- More story movement, very rarely felt like anything was stagnant
- The welcome return of a familiar face from Shadow of Night
I would rate this book an 8/10. The trilogy may have started off weak but it did improve with every instalment and finished very strong. There are a few characters who I think it would have been worth seeing more of, both allies and villains. It would have given the book's arc more sustenance.
Comments
Post a Comment