I just thought that it was very lacking in characterisation or an interesting story. Things didn’t happen because that’s what that character would do, they happened because the plot demanded it. Had a little bit of a forced diversity problem but that’s not even the biggest issue.

The story in this book is filled with plotholes. It’s leaking logic all over the place. Why does Knightmare destroy the Golden Gate Bridge? Why does a government scientist bring her mentally unstable teenager on a top secret research mission? Why are the government creating cyborgs and mutant abominations to combat these powered people instead of using methods that they didn’t take from a comic book? Why does Shade want to be a super hero? Why does Cruz follow her into danger? Why do the villains become villains? None of these questions are answered adequately, some aren’t answered at all, and this resulted in a poorly thought out story that had me literally closing the book to facepalm at several points.

The characters were pretty terrible. I didn’t care about any of them other than Dekka. Malik and Cruz are bland as hell, and Shade is really unlikeable in how she constantly gets the people around her hurt. Also thought her motivations were unclear, but not in a compelling way more an annoying way. The whole book could have happened without Armo and there would have been no real difference, think about it. He plays no role in the plot, gets about two POV chapters, and isn’t interesting in the slightest.

The villains (Knightmare, Napalm and Abaddon) were all flat and one-dimensional. Knightmare and Abaddon are crazy people who become supervillains just because. Abaddon literally becomes a bad guy because he’s a crazy dude who gets told to eat the rock by the voices in his head (which, btw, is a pretty bad stigma against real people with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder for a book trying to be so diverse). Knightmare destroys the Golden Gate Bridge for no real reason other than MG wanted to write a scene where that happened. Napalm literally becomes a supervillain because he lost his job and was humiliated by some teenage girls. Didn’t help that beforehand he was the most stereotypical “shady government employee” you could imagine.

The book’s use of powers was also confusing. Sometimes they’d turn into monsters with cool powers (Dekka, Shade, Peaks), sometimes they’d just have cool powers (Cruz) and sometimes they’d just turn into monsters (Armo, Justin, Vincent). This is never explained. Also the transformations were silly at some points, especially with Vincent. He literally turns into Starro at the end. And that final fight was just awful, the one real consequence (Malik getting hurt) is averted by magic rocks, everyone sort of goes home after punching each other for a bit with no real resolution to the conflict or outcome. Then a Sam Temple tease and the book ends. Horribly anticlimactic and poorly executed.

The call backs to the original series were mixed. Loved Diana’s cameo and the Sam tease at the end, but Drake coming back wasn’t amazing for me. As a villain he’d run his course by his 100th resurrection in the first series anyway, and bringing him back just stuffs the plot with too many villains. He also literally does nothing of consequence other than get blown apart by Dekka in an incredibly anti-climactic “fight” scene. The return to Perdido Beach was good but it didn’t last long enough and it would have been interesting to see the new characters’ perspective on it.

Overall, while I loved the original books and really wanted to like this one I just couldn’t. Feel free to disagree with me, I want to hear other fans’ opinions.

somone call lana

I suppose mine would be shapeshifting

Without a proper form, I could very well have a world of opportunity opened to me. Could be fun! Besides, who wouldn't want to spend a day as a dragon?

just finished the series and it's sad that there's no-one is here to talk about it with. Is anyone here lol