Elixir - Hilary Duff (Elixir #1)

Oh, Elixir.  What a twisted path we've taken to each ohter.  See, the thing is, I noticed Elixir when it first came out because it was seemingly everywhere in the bookstores I was going to.  But I didn't read it.  (Why?  Two reasons: it was written by Hilary Duff, and while The Lizzie McGuire movie is the pinnacle of all things amazing, I am skeptical of celebrities' writing abilities, and because the font was too big.  Yes, I did in fact judge books by how large they were printed, in some though that the larger the font, the poorer the quality.  I still think there is something to this idea.)  But it came to mind when I needed a book to fulfill the "written by a celebrity" category of my reading challenge, so off to the library I went.

It was better than I thought, but not great.

Here's the thing.  I think this is a premise that would make an awesome late teen/young adult TV show.  It has all the markings of a great one for these times: a pretty girl with a penchant for photography, a love triangle with two attractive guys, a hint of the supernatural, and various times and places that would make sets and costuming a clear standout.  And for a book in the same vein, it wasn't horrible.  In fact, I liked it quite a bit until about 2/3 of the way through.  The plot follows Clea, who, after looking at pictures taken on vacation with her best friend, finds that the same guy is lurking in the background in all of them, including in places there's no way he actually could have been--like hundreds of feet up in midair.  And then she starts having dreams about him, in four distinctly separate times and places, with her taking on the persona of four different young women.  And then, when she tells her friend Ben about them, he reveals to her that she's not the first person to see this guy in photos.  Clea's father saw him in photos of and by her, too, all through her life up until he vanished a year before while on a trip to Brazil.  Wanting answers about both the guy in the pictures and her father's disappearance, Clea accepts a photojournalism assignment to cover the Samba Parade at Carnival and plans to stop by the last place her father was seen on the way.  And then, while she's there, she and Ben run into the guy from the photos, and everything gets weird very fast.

Here's the thing... Once Clea and Ben run into Sage, all logic goes out the door and the pace of the story dissolves into complete goop.  I think it was actually pretty well-structured leading up to this point, and even for a bit afterwards I thought it was going to go well.  But then Clea decides to dive head-first into a relationship with a guy that she thinks might have killed her in past lives and might be planning to do so again because her other best friend, Rayna, tells her to listen to her heart.  Oh, suddenly instead of just looking for answers, Clea & Co. are being chased by a bunch of baddies who have no problems shooting up malls in Tokyo to get at them.  (This is another scene that was tailor-made for TV but did not work so great on paper.)  Very little is found out about Clea's dad, except that he might actually still be alive, but that didn't really bother me, because that's something that's clearly going to come out more in the other books in the series.  But the end of the book... Ugh.  Clea is all blame-y on Ben for something that was really her fault, and that was so against the logical person she'd been for most of the book that it annoyed me even more than it would have if she'd been a normal brainless YA heroine.  That and a few more minor things (Clea's dad was declared dead after four months?  What?  It's typically seven years for someone to be declared dead without a body, people...) really grated one me, even though I could see how awesome this really could have been.

Overall, I think this is a book that was written with the screen, rather the page, in mind--not surprising, considering Duff's background.  And I think it would have done well on the small screen.  But as a book, the pacing just doesn't feel right, and the way that Clea as a character kind of falls apart at the end, putting a guy she's just met before everyone else, including friends and family she's had for, uhm, ever, really knocked it down for me.

2 stars out of 5.

Marrying Winterborne - Lisa Kleypas (Ravenels #2)

It took me forever to get this book because there were no fewer than twenty-six people ahead of me on the hold list at the library.  I've eagerly awaited it for months...and I'm disappointed.  Marrying Winterborne is not Kleypas' finest work, and there's basically one reason for this: it's not really a romance in the sense we typically think of.  The actual romance took place in the previous book, Cold-Hearted Rake, and wraps up very early in this book, leaving a typical romance subplot (family drama) to carry the rest of the book on its own.  But the thing is... I'm not sure how else to really do it for this particular one.

Here's the problem.  Our hero, Rhys Winterborne, ended Cold-Hearted Rake as a real ass.  Like, a real bastard.  And then he's pretty manipulative in the beginning of this volume, too, which means that, once he and Helen actually reconcile, he can't put a single toe out of the line before straying dangerously in the territory of "might not be redeemable in the readers' eyes."  But since this reconciliation takes place so early, Rhys actually ends up staying off the page for far more of the book than Kleypas' heroes typically do, mainly only appearing so he and Helen can have sex and so he can rant about his arch nemesis, something Vance.  The rest of the time, Helen pines, deals with the twins (Pandora and Cassandra, who are awesome.  I want their books to be written, STAT.) and finds out a Secret about herself that could jeopardize everything she wants!  GASP!

...except it can't, because plainly she and Rhys can't really have a falling out of over this Secret, because, uhm, they already had a falling out, and Rhys blowing up at Helen over something that's so clearly not her fault really would push him into the Land of Irredeemable Heroes.  (This is totally a real place.)  I am all for suspension of disbelief in books, and Kleypas really usually does well in this area, but I just could not find it in me to believe that real conflict was going to arise from this.  And part of the problem is because Helen is just so...so...blah.  She's all sweetness and light and despite apparently liking shocking people (which she doesn't actually seem to other than one moment) there's really not all that much to her.  She's thought of by her family and friends as a delicate wallflower who hangs out in the background, and she's exactly that, and doesn't really have any hidden qualities that elevate her to the status of "interesting main character."  Wallflowers totally can be interesting main characters, and Kleypas has done it before.  I just don't think she's done it here.  There are just so many other interesting characters (Pandora, Cassandra, West, Severin! and even Charity/Carys) flitting about that making Helen the star is difficult, and I don't think it was really successful.

I have really high hopes for the rest of this series, because now Kleypas has burned through the two boring heroines and should have the more interesting ones coming up.  The next book, Devil in Spring, is going to tie in her Wallflowers series to this one, which is great, because that was my favorite series of hers.  But this particular installment wasn't a strong one, and it's not one I anticipate going back to time and time again to read the juicy bits.  (Come on, you do it too.)

2 stars out of 5.

The Ropemaker - Peter Dickinson (The Ropemaker #1)

The Ropemaker has been one of my favorite fantasy stories for a long time, but I hadn't read it in a while, which meant that it was a perfect candidate for my reading challenge category of "A book you haven't read since high school."  I knew that I hadn't read this since high school because I lent my copy to someone and they never gave it back!  Don't you have when that happens?  But now I have the Kindle version, so all is well--though really, the Kindle version could so with some updating format-wise.  Also, did you know that Peter Dickinson was married to Robin McKinley?  I didn't!

So.  The Ropemaker is the story of Tilja, a girl who lives in the peaceful Valley, which has been cut off from the Empire to the south and the land of the horse tribes to the north for twenty generations due to an act of magic that has been maintained by two families, one of them Tilja's own.  The story starts with the slow failure of the magic that protects the Valley, and Tilja ends up going with her grandmother and two members of the other family who protect the magic to find Faheel, the magician who cut the Valley off in the first place, to renew the spells that keep them safe.

This is, at its heart, a simple story, but I love it.  I think Dickinson has managed to create one of those worlds that might seem simple on the surface, but you absorb a very deep sense of it while reading.  From the Valley to the Empire's capital of Talagh, to the city of the dying in the south, to all of the things and people and customs that Tilja and her companions encounter in between, it's just a very rich world and one that has a lot of cultural characteristics that aren't very commonly seen in fantasy novels.  Tilja is also a simple character, but one that I think makes her approachable for a wide variety of readers.  She's a little bit of a misfit, being the elder daughter in her family but not being on track to inherit her family's farm because she can't hear the cedars in the forest that protects the Valley.  Indeed, Tilja is actually the least magical person, well, ever, and as she goes on her journey she learns to grow into that and use it to her own advantage, turning it into her own sort of special ability.  And while we know Tilja isn't a full adult, it's hard to get a handle on exactly how old she is until about two-thirds of the way through the book, which I think allows you to read her as a variety of ages...and they pretty much all work.

Honestly, this book is a lot like The Hobbit to me: a simple, magical journey with what is ultimately a very simple goal, but also a story that is enveloping and beautiful at the same time.  (I don't have the same feelings for the main Lord of the Rings trilogy.)  I was so happy when this received a sequel, Angel Isle, years after I first read it, and I was very pleased to have an excuse to read it again.

5 stars.

Soulless - Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate #1)

For some reason, I thought I'd already read something by Gail Carriger--the name just sounds so familiar.  But scrolling through her titles, that doesn't seem to be the case; Soulless is definitely the first book of hers to come across my shelves.  While it had been on my to-read list for a while, due to some good ratings from friends, I ended up getting around to it because it was the September buddy read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers group.

Soulless was a weird book to me, because it was another of those titles that had all the things I typically like, but when looked at as a whole it didn't amaze me.  What are those things I like?  Romance.  Paranormal fantasy. Victorian steampunk settings.  All of these things are tropes that I typically gush over, and they were all combined here.  In Victorian England, Alexia Tarabotti is soulless, AKA a preternatural--her touch nullifies the abilities and supernatural-ness of, well, supernaturals, the main two varieties being werewolves and vampires.  (Ghosts are also included as supernaturals but we don't actually see any in this book.)  While supernaturals are known the world over, England seems to be unique in the way that they have been integrated into society.  For example, in the United States, supernaturals are executed if they're found out.  Alexia inherited her condition from her Italian father, but her mother and family don't know about.  Who does know about it Lord Maccon, head of BUR.  I have no idea what BUR stands for.  I'm not sure it was ever explained.  But it's a sort of agency that helps to govern the supernatural community.  Lord Maccon (which, honestly, I kept reading as Lord Bacon) is also a werewolf.  Oh, and he has the hots for Alexia, even though they always argue and there was apparently a detrimental incident with a hedgehog.

The book starts out with Alexia encountering a very strange vampire and killing him, opening the door to a whole mystery involving the disappearances of supernaturals and someone hunting Alexia.  And of course, her courtship by Lord Maccon.  But here's the thing: this didn't feel like a balanced book.  It felt like the second halves of two separate books.  The paranormal mystery component came across as rushed, and I felt like we only had the second half of the romance--because for all Alexia and Maccon snipe at each other and profess to not liking each other, they certainly end up making out pretty quickly.  I wish that their earlier interactions--like the hedgehog incident--had been included, because I  think that would have really helped to build the romance in a better way.  As it was, it just felt a bit disconnected, and I also never felt like it integrated in a good way with the mystery plot.  This book also would have benefited from a few chapters entirely from Maccon's point of view to help flesh out BOTH sides of the plot.  Because this fleshing-out, in all aspects, never happened, it really feels like this is just the facade of a story, instead of the story itself...which, considering this book is about 360 pages long, seems rather odd.

The other thing that bothered me was the "soulless" thing itself, because there is absolutely nothing to indicate that Alexia doesn't have a soul.  Everyone seems to think that just because she's logical and keeps her head about her, that means she's soulless.  Oh, and the whole neutralizing touch thing.  But the thinking here just didn't make sense to me--Alexia can clearly think and feel and possesses her own free will, so why wouldn't she have a soul?  I thought this was going to come out more as a realization in the end, that she's not soulless at all, but it didn't.  Consequently, the whole book rests upon what is, ultimately, some flimsy thinking, and it totters precariously on its perch.

I did like the bantering between Alexia and Maccon, and I liked the writing in general.  It was snarky and charming.  I've seen a few people mention they thought less time could have been spent describing what people where wearing, and while I can see the point there--it does take up a significant amount of page time that I think probably could have been used for plot and character development--I rather liked it.  It helps the whole book to read as a sort of lengthy gossip column, which I think is an interesting way of looking at a story.  I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, though.  I think Carriger has an interesting world here, and she could do a lot with it...but I'm not sure that she accomplished it in this particular book.

2.5 stars out of 5.  This had some things I liked but I think the flaws outweighed them, and I'm not really intrigued enough to read the rest of the series.

The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu (Three Body Problem #1)

The Three-Body Problem is a Hugo Winner.  That means that, in the sci-fi/fantasy category, it's good.  I will trust other people's judgment on that, for the most part, because I am not a connoisseur of "hard" sci-fi, which this is.  I'm more a StarDoc type of girl, personally, if I read sci-fi at all.  Time-travel isn't bad, either.  This...this was a little "hard" for me, but I still enjoyed it overall.

So, the story is about people making contact with aliens.  It jumps between a couple of timelines: the Cultural Revolution in China and modern-day China, when China and the rest of the world are secretly (as in, the militaries and governments are, but the people don't know about it) preparing for a war against said aliens.  The basic story is this: during the Cultural Revolution, Ye Wenjie is thought to be anti-revolutionary and is confined to a base called Red Coast atop a mountain called Radar Peak, for the big antenna located there.  She works on the systems at the base without really knowing what they do, other than that they broadcast and receive signals from space.  Eventually, she figures out some science that makes it more likely that any signals broadcast into space would be picked up by intelligent life, and sends out a signal because she is increasingly disillusioned by life on Earth.

In the current day, Wang Miao is asked by the military to infiltrate a group of scientists among whom suicide has been rampant.  He refuses, but when strange things start happening to him, including a countdown that only he can see, he relents and agrees.  Along the way, he encounters a strange virtual-reality video game called Three Body, which features a world that is plagued by unstable day/night and season cycles.  Wang sets out to solve the problem of Three Body, and of course gets sucked into the drama surrounding it.

I thought this book had some really interesting parallels between Earth and the alien civilization, Trisolaris, and I actually learned quite a bit about the Three-Body Problem itself, too.  It's a physics problem in which three bodies (in this case, stars) affect each other's gravity and orbits and those of anything else near them--like, oh, planets.  The thing is, no one has actually solved the Three-Body Problem and found a way to accurately predict the movements of every three-body system.  I think this was an interesting way to incorporate the alien civilization into the story, as a group trying to solve the problem for their own self-preservation.  The movement of the timeline between past and present also worked here.  I don't think the author held anything back from a misguided attempt to make us gasp with shock, but instead revealed things in a manner that was surprising, and interesting, but still sensible to both the characters and the reader.

I'm not sure if I'll continue this trilogy; I'm not opposed to it, per se, because this was clearly a very solid book, but I'm not quite sure if it was my cup of tea.  The actual "conflict" also doesn't seem to be very immediate to me, because it's removed by almost five centuries from the main characters, which makes it hard for me to just salivate at wanting to know what comes next.

Overall, I'm going to give it 3.5 stars.  It's well-written (and, I would guess, well-translated, which definitely helps) and has a solid base, but I wasn't totally engrossed.

Reading Challenge Updates

Completed
 -A science-fiction novel.  I read The Three Body Problem for this, which won the Hugo in 2015.  I thought it was good but not intriguing enough to have me scurrying off to buy the next one--which apparently suffers from translation issues, anyway.  While the premise is interesting I found the problem seemed somewhat removed in time from the "present" of the story, which I think detracted from the urgency somewhat.

-A satirical book.  For this, I took on What If? which uses science to answer absurd hypothetical questions and makes fun of how things work in general in the process.  It's fun but I think it works better in the blog format that it originally premiered in than it does as a book.

-A book you haven't read since high school.  I returned to The Ropemaker for this category, which was one of my favorite books in high school.  I enjoyed it again, still finding that it's a rich world and an interesting main character who I think can appeal to a wide range of ages despite being only twelve herself.

-A book written by a celebrity.  I saw Elixir by Hilary Duff ages ago, probably when it first came out, but I didn't read it because I was skeptical.  I had good reason to be.  I don't think this worked particularly well as a book, despite having a few really cool elements going for it.  I think it would be better suited to a TV series which, given Duff's professional background, isn't really surprising.

-A book based on a fairy tale.  I settled on Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister for this, which is a historical fiction take on the classic Cinderella story.  I liked it as a historical fiction novel, but I think it was missing some of the magic that makes the original story and its many other adaptations so, well, magical, and the twist at the end didn't entirely please me.

-A book that intimidates you.  Despite the intimidating page count of The Count of Monte Cristo, I got through it in pretty short order.  People rave about this, but I actually didn't like it so much, finding some of the reasoning lacking and the pacing uneven.

-A book from Oprah's Book Club.  I picked Stolen Lives off an Oprah's Book Club list, before I even realized that the book club is still going on Goodreads and there are still new selections being released!  That's something to keep an eye on, but I really enjoyed Stolen Lives.  The content matter is terrible, but fascinating, and the strength of Malika and her family is truly astounding.


Still to Come
-A National Book Award winner.  I don't really know much about book awards, as I tend to ignore them in favor of reading whatever interests me at the time.  So I had to pull up the list of National Book Award winners to have something to go off for this one.  Most of them didn't really intrigue me (who decides what makes a book award-worthy, anyway?) but I eventually picked The Shipping News off the list as looking at least mildly interesting.

-A book recommended by someone you just met.  I asked the NaNoWriMo Facebook group what they thought I should read this year; one reply was already on the list (Grave Beginnings) but the other was not; therefore, I shall be reading The Machinery by Gerrard Cowan for this category.

-A book at least 100 years older than you.  I'm actually going to get around to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for this one, because I want to read one of the steampunk novels that started it all as research for my own writing.

-A book recommended by a family member.

-A graphic novel.  I love Neil Gaiman but am not a huge fan of graphic novels, so I've avoided his Sandman series up until this point, despite buying my boyfriend the entire series for various occasions.  Now seems like a pretty good time to give them a go and start in Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes.

-A book with a protagonist who has your occupation.

-A book of poetry.  I'm going to do something I don't usually do (unless a category specifically calls for it) and re-read a book for this one: I Was the Jukebox by Sandra Beasely, which I read for a writing class in college.  I'm not a big poetry person in general, but there is one poem in this book that I found really amazing, and I'd like to read it and write about it again.

-A classic from the 20th century.  I'm going to do Lolita for this one, because I feel like I need to squish a Russian novel in here somewhere.  What really makes a classic, anyway?  I don't know, but this list that I found says Lolita is one.

-An autobiography.  I picked up Papillon by Henri Charriere at a used bookstore in New Jersey (Broad Street Books in Branchville, if anyone out there is in the area; it was absolutely lovely and I look forward to going back the next time we're in the area) but put it down in favor of another title.  Now I wish I'd bought it!  Charriere wrote this book about his wrongful conviction for a crime and his subsequent escapes from prison.  Most autobiographies bore me on principal, but this one actually sounds interesting.

-A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with.  I'm leaning towards Shutting Out the Sun for this one, which is a non-fiction book about Japan's "lost generation."

-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller.

-A book you should have read in school.  This I'm going to fill with The Odyssey, which every other English class in my high school read, but my class as a whole did not because our teacher was too busy having raptures about the hero's journey in the Star Wars series to actually assign it to us.

-A book chosen for you by your spouse, partner, sibling, child, or BFF.  My boyfriend has selected The Samurai's Tale for this category for me.  I don't really know much about it other than the title, so we'll see how it goes!

-A book published before you were born.  Let's face it: most of history is before I was born.  This means that I have a very wide scope of titles from which to choose.  I'm going to go with the classics and choosing Wuthering Heights for this one.

-A book you previously abandoned.  I'm planning on using Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell for this one.  I've had this book for years, and started it at one point, but I just couldn't get into it.  I'm hoping that time will have improved it some for me, just like how I liked Vellum much more when I returned to it years after first purchasing and attempting to read it.

Empire of Storms - S. J. Maas (Throne of Glass #5)

I feel like it's been forever since I've read a real fantasy novel, but it really hasn't been!  I read both The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate within the past few weeks, and Smoke and Blood Debt not too long before that.  But none of those are really the classic, sweeping sort of fantasy that the Throne of Glass series is, and I guess that's why Empire of Storms felt so refreshing--though the other books were by no means stale.

Empire of Storms is the fifth book in the Throne of Glass series.  By now we know that the King of Adarlan wasn't the Big Bad, it's actually Erawan, the Valg King, who was hiding out inside a duke's body until this point.  Aelin has also made her return to claim her crown as the Queen of Terrasen, and she and her crew know they're going to have down Erawan or the whole world of Erilea is going to be destroyed.  So, with all that in mind, this book does a couple of different things.

It features Aelin's return to Terrasen, which doesn't go very well, and her attempts to both stop Erawan and reclaim her crown.  Manon Blackbeak, our resident witch, struggles with the knowledge she's gained of what exactly is going on in Morath.  And Elide, who escaped from Morath at the end of the last book, attempts to find Aelin/Celaena to give her the Wyrdkey that Kaltain gave her, though Elide doesn't know exactly what it is she's carrying.  Along the way, all of those involved run into plenty of trouble, encounter new monsters, and forge new friendships/ally-ships to get them through.  Oh, and did I mention Maeve the Fae Queen might be up to something dastardly, too?

While I liked this overall, Maas did a few things that really annoyed me.  First, there's a Big Secret that comes out at the end about Aelin and Rowan.  Aelin has been doing things on the sly all along, so I was used to that, but we're typically keyed in about things the other characters are doing--so the fact that three characters other than Aelin knew what happened, and yet we were kept in the dark for it, was annoying.  It wasn't SHOCKING when this thing came out, though Maas clearly meant for it to be.  Instead, I was just irked that she decided to ditch her typical storytelling convention in an attempt to pull at our heartstrings.  And, I might add, not a very successful attempt; I think other parts of the book were far more dramatic and poignant than that.

Second, there is no Chaol in this book, so if you were hoping for Chaol, be prepared to be disappointed.  I expected to see some of Chaol and Nesryn (that was her name, right?) on the southern continent, getting Chaol better while attempting to win allies for Adarlan and Terrasen against Erawan.  That's pretty much where the end of Book 4 hinted at his story going.  But instead, there is a strange Chaol-shaped gap in the story.  Would having him have resulted in too many plots in too many directions?  Maybe... It's hard to say.  But it's very strange to suddenly have a character who was a prominent presence in the former 4 books of the series just suddenly not be there at all.

Third, more Elide and Lorcan, please!  This is kind of combined with another one, which is that apparently normal people aren't allowed to do interesting things in Maas' world?  Honestly, Aelin was a bit more interesting when she was Celaena, a mere mortal who used her wits and strength to change her path, than when she became a super-powered part-fae-whatever-she-is-now.  Even Elide doesn't get to be fully mortal, though she's the closest of the batch to being so.  At first having a few "supernatural" characters sprinkled in was fun...but it's getting old fast.  But specifically with Elide and Lorcan, I wanted more chapters with them.  Aelin and Rowan are clearly together for the long haul and are therefore no longer interesting at this point, so I wanted more of the new blossoming romance here.  (There are also other brewing pairings in Aelin's group, but Elide and Lorcan, off on their own, were far more interesting.)

Fourth, and finally (I'll talk about cool things in a minute), Maas has started really pulling in from the novellas that were published before the first book.  I don't really like this as an approach; little nods to short stories/novellas that tie in with a series are cool, but expecting people to track down and read them so they understand what's going on isn't.  At this point, if you haven't read the novellas, you're going to be pretty lost with some of the characters appearing and things goings on.  I have read the novellas, but it's very rare of me to do so, and I can see how frustrated I would have been if I had come to this book and then realized that there was a whole bunch of other stuff I had to read that hadn't been mentioned until this point, and hadn't been included in a main book in the series.

Okay, now for the stuff I liked!  I liked the writing, as usual--I think that Maas has really matured as a writer throughout this series, and this book is much better than the original Throne of Glass.  There were some very neat settings here, such as the introduction of the Stone Marshes and the re-introduction/introduction (depending on whether you read the novellas or not) of Skull's Bay.  Actually, the entire Skull's Bay sequence, including the big fight, was pretty cool, and was actually one of my favorite parts of the book.  It ends a little bit of a swashbuckling air to the story and is a nice change from the trekking overland we'd seen until this point.

Another interesting point was watching Aelin's growing network of connections.  I totally sympathize with Aedion and wanting to punch her in the face for not telling anyone what was going on, but also understand her reasoning--which Aedion does too, eventually.  All of those connections that Aelin has made in the past are now coming back to help her, and it's the continuation of her actually becoming someone worthy of the title '"Queen."  I'm glad she didn't actually grab her crown right away upon returning to Terrasen, because this fight has made her a continually more compelling character.  Do I like where this book left off with her?  Well... I'm just kind of "meh" about it.  I've moved on to other favorite characters by now, and I think it would actually be kind of of interesting to see how they would fight back if the great and powerful Aelin fell.  But the inclusion of the flashback parts, and the new knowledge of Elena, was very interesting, too.  And I loved how Maas finally tied Manon's storyline more completely into the main one.

Overall, I think there is a lot to like about this one, but there are a few things that just didn't seem to fit that drag it down from a most-excellent rating.  All those things considered, I'm giving this 3.5 stars, but I'm hopeful for the final volume...though I'm unsure of how Maas is going to wrap it all up.