She could save the world—or destroy it.
Sixteen year old Evangeline “Evie” Greene leads a charmed life—until she begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations. When an apocalyptic event decimates her Louisiana hometown, killing everyone she loves, Evie realizes her hallucinations were actually visions of the future—and they’re still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux.
But she can’t do either alone.
With his mile-long rap sheet, wicked grin, and bad attitude, Jack is like no boy Evie has ever known. Even though he once scorned her and everything she represented, he agrees to protect Evie on her quest. She knows she can’t totally trust Jack. If he ever cast that wicked grin her way, could she possibly resist him?
Who can Evie trust?
As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophesy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of teens has been chosen to reenact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it’s not always clear who is on which side…
In Poison Princess, New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole introduces a dark and intriguing world, full of unspeakable danger and irresistible romance.
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Plot: In the beginning I thought that this story was moving pretty slow, and I get that it is the first book in a series and Kresley Cole is trying to handle both character development and world building and to set everything up for future books as well, which can be a difficult process. Also, the story kept jumping from the POV of Arthur to the POV of Evie, and I get how that was necessary, but more often than not when it switched back to Arthur it threw me out of the story for a moment and I had to mentally refocus on everything, which was a bit distracting. I'm not going to lie that I honestly thought about giving up in the beginning 25% of the book or so, but I decided to stick it out, and I'm glad I did, because everything started to improve as the book progressed. The characters became stronger and more developed, the world and plot started to come together, and the story pace picked up so that when I had to stop reading I kept wondering what would happen and would be lost in that dream world until I picked up the book again. I actually enjoy when that happens.
From the world building perspective as well as character development, I really enjoyed the Cajun dialect thrown into the story. It lent some authenticity and helped me to imagine everything better. I could hear the dialogue in my head based on the regional spelling of certain words and the distinct phrasing of sentences, particularly from Jackson.
Learning about the Arcana characters was interesting, and I'm glad that it took the whole book for Evie to really start to learn about who she is and what she can do. It wasn't like she instantly knew everything, which was great for the plot and the readers because it basically eased us into everything instead of dropping us straight into the deep end of the pool and expecting us to swim. Also, I thought the whole concept of the Flash and dealing with the aftermath was well done.
I am really looking forward to seeing what happens with Evie and the others in Endless Knight.
Characters: In the beginning Evie really really really annoyed me. She was the pretty and popular girl who had a secret she was keeping from everyone. She thought she was going crazy and even spent the summer locked up far away from home as doctors etc. tried to figure out what was wrong with her and medicate her to deal with her "hallucinations". I get that there are girls out there who really only care about their hair and clothes and makeup and worrying about their boyfriends and such, but I just don't really connect with those kinds of characters. But, after the Flash, Evie had to start worrying more about survival than looks, and once she finally leaves her house to try and find her grandmother, I feel like she really starts to develop and becomes someone I don't mind reading about as much.
However, the reason I stuck with this book long enough for it to get good was Jackson Deveaux. Oh Jack. You motorcycle riding Cajun. I think lately I've started to really enjoy the "bad boys" more in books, movies, and TV shows--such as Damon in "The Vampire Diaries", and Jack certainly hits the spot. Plus, as a motorcyclist myself, I guess I really do enjoy other biker characters. I didn't even mind that there wasn't much description about the motorcycle itself since the story is from Evie's POV and she obviously knows nothing about them. Though, watching as Jack basically gushed over a Ducati at a later point in the novel was adorable. Jack is Evie's protector through a great deal of the book and he basically earns the title of badass. He is good with mechanics, with weapons, and with survival. It is also nice that the relationship that seems to be building between Evie and Jack is not an insta-love situation, which really is quite annoying and seems to happen a lot in YA. I liked that they had a number of moments of basically disliking each other and then they built up trust in each other and a sort of friendship before the real romance started to come out in the open.
Other characters include other Arcana cards. Evie is The Empress, and we are also introduced to Matthew who is The Fool, and Selena who is The Moon. Other Arcana are introduced as well, but they don't play as big a role as Matthew and Selena in this book. Matthew is the character who explains a lot of the Arcana stuff to Evie, but a lot of what he says only seems to confuse her because he speaks in odd phrases and such that don't mean much at first. Later, when Evie actually meets Matthew in person she discovers that he is autistic and that explains a lot of his mental mannerisms from the first 75% of the book. Selena is technically The Moon but she is called The Archer quite a bit through the book as well, and in a number of ways she is a hybrid of Evie and Jack. She has the fashion and makeup and wealth of Evie, but the love of hunting and motorcycles and such that Jack has, which brings out Evie's jealousy as Selena and Jack start to spend time together, which I found slightly annoying, but I can say that Selena grew on me faster than Evie did. Since there are so many Arcana cards, I'll just say that we also meet, The Tower, Death, Temperance, The Hermit, The Devil, and Judgment. There's also the mention of other cards, such as The Sun, so I guess we'll be meeting more Arcana in the next book.
Obviously, you can tell by this review that there is a lot going on in this book, and it is a pretty good read with a lot of nice complexities. And, since Endless Knight was selected a couple months ago as an alt. pick for Vaginal Fantasy book club, I will be reading it soon enough.
Get your own copy: B&N, Amazon, BAM, Kobo, Audible
No comments:
Post a Comment