One of the books I was most looking forward to reading this year was Ascendant, sequel to Rampant. Killer unicorns are awesome, even if Rampant has some troubling virginity themes. It took forever for the book to be ready for me at the library and while I waited, Sassymonkey read it – and wrote about it. Uh oh. So when it arrived, I knew there were some potential problems waiting for me but since I don’t always agree with Sassymonkey – I dove in and tried to ignore what she’d written.
But, it started slowly. I struggled. And I struggled with the pace for the entire book – just as Sassymonkey said.
I also really hated what was going on with Cory (and the clueless Astrid) in the first 50 pages. I think that’s what bugged me most about Ascendant – the clumsy Cory storyline. Either tell us about the problem with lesbian virgin hunters or set it up properly so you can tell us in the next book (the book that you don’t actually have a book deal for…) Clumsy. I like the idea of addressing it but I do not like the manner in which it was addressed (It felt like maybe Peterfreund doesn’t really know what the problem might or might not be with lesbian virgin hunters… thus the clumsy handling of it.)
And Astrid, oh Astrid. Teen girls are not the most mature of creatures but I’m getting a little tired of the warrior making so many poor decisions. I know she has mother issues, who wouldn’t with Lilith as a mother, but good grief – Astrid should have been just a little smarter than that. There were moments when it was worse than reading Bella (Twilight).
None of this means that Ascendant was a bad book – it wasn’t. It’s still an excellent story. The actaeon storyline – brilliant. I do still want book three. Scratch that – I need book three since this one was so much of a muddled up mess in places. I hope we see more of Wren and Flayer (who it was nice to see again – they made their first appearance in Zombies vs Unicorns and I really loved that story.) And I hope Peterfreund can fix the Cory problem properly.
Yes, the Cory problem. I do not like the Cory problem and we’re not even sure what the Cory problem IS. I mean, sure we suspect it’s the lesbian hunter thing but um…oh heck what’s her name? Cory’s girlfriend – she doesn’t seem to have the same problem. At least not yet.
The actaeon storyline was brilliant. I agree with that and I really need a book three. And more of the hunters. When the hunter died in this one I was all meh because we hadn’t seen them in ages. I feel like she’s trying to tell too many stories at once.