Purple People Readers

I love the Green Rider series. I fell in love with it six years ago when my best friend handed me Green Rider and  told me that I would probably be done with it the next day. She was right. Blackveil, however, just wasn’t up to par for me.

What I liked:

The suspense is terrific and I am greatly enjoying how the overall storyline is progressing. Once again, Britain creates a world that I can just grab onto and completely immerse myself in. Blackveil is deliciously horrific and I am glad she held nothing back when it came to making it the scariest forest you could possibly imagine.

One of my FAVORITE parts about this book was that we got to learn a little bit more about Kariny, Karigan’s mother. She is a character I have always been interested in, and I think the wait was worth it. Even though she’s not alive in these books, she is still a complex character that I find myself caring for very much.

What I didn’t:

I said I liked the progression of the overall storyline, however, the storyline of the individual novels is getting a bit formulaic — there’s danger, Karigan dives into it headfirst, and then almost kills herself.

Also, for me, this book was drawn out. It was one of those novels where when it’s good, it’s really good, but getting to the good parts takes some effort. One of the things I disliked the most was all the indirect inner dialogue. What I mean by that is that we got a lot of “Bob was sure Nancy did that because (insert reason here).” I don’t like being told characters’ motivations very much, especially when they’re through a different perspective. Did Nancy do that because of that reason? Maybe not. Bob thinks so, but it may not be true. Honestly, I don’t think this sort of information adds anything to the story. It’s much more interesting to incorporate Nancy’s background and characteristics throughout the story, have her do the action, and then leave it up to the reader to decide why she did what she did. It’s more of a creative process for both the reader and writer and allows for good discussions and debates to arise, which is one of the joys of reading.

Conclusion:

Do I recommend this book? For fans of the series, I certainly do. However, if you haven’t read it yet, I suggest waiting and reading some other books on your “to read” list. This book has a ridiculous cliffhanger and considering that there was a 2 year gap between the third book and this book, answers aren’t going to be coming anytime soon.

Will I continue reading? Absolutely. I still love the characters and the world Britain has built. I just hope it ends soon, because I’ve pretty much had enough of Karigan getting herself into trouble. If it isn’t wrapped up by the sixth book, I’ll probably quit this series.