Thalia @ Pictures in the Words

I don’t get it! I just don’t get it!

Am I missing something? Did my box not come with all of the puzzle pieces? Is this like one of those “magic eye” posters and I can’t keep my eyes unfocused long enough to see the masterpiece? Why in the world do so many people seem to like this book/series? What am I missing?!

Honestly, though. I don’t know why I read this. I wasn’t a fan of I Am Number Four and the present tense writing is just so horribly done here that I have trouble processing just how awful it really is. The plot moves at a glacial pace, and there are plot holes and bad characterization and there are only two narrations going on here because the two authors who come together to form “Pittacus Lore” just seemed to be too lazy to actually mesh their writing together cohesively. I don’t know what it is that makes me give it anything more than one star, since I usually come out at the end hating every minute of it and wanting to rip my hair out, but there’s something there that doesn’t make it a complete waste. I’m not entirely sure I know what it is yet.

What I Liked: Spoilers!

• The only thing I can possibly think of to say is that the pacing finally evened out at the end. The climax ended up working fairly well, and I was interested enough in what was going on when things were “exciting”. Also, Sarah and John broke up. (I think.) And I mean, how can I not celebrate that? That made me flipping ecstatic. Dear heavens, that’s really all I can think of that I liked. Why did I give this two stars?!

What I Didn’t Like:

• I will need to (very soon) do an opinion post about present tense writing. I talk about this every single time I read a book in present tense, but I just can’t stand it. I don’t even understand how anyone could possibly like this style. It’s done so poorly in this book. Four (John) and Seven (Marina) both sound incredibly robotic and completely emotionless—which really sucks in scenes like the end, when we go through character deaths and neither of our narrators seem to be able to process emotion. Hector dies and it’s like Marina barely even notices or cares—even though they were supposedly best friends. John seems to be going through some emotional trauma from being betrayed by the “luv of hes lyfe” and leaving Sam in a cave full of bad guys, but he doesn’t show any of that to the reader. And can we just address the fact that commas are not replacements for ellipses or stutter dashes? “I think, I think I can heal you.” No. “I think…I think I can heal you.” Yes! “I, I think so.” No. “I—I think so,” or “I…I think so.” Yes! And basic dialogue tag errors and did anybody edit this book? I’m beginning to think not.

• This book was painstakingly slow—and it was made even worse by the duel narration. (Which was definitely a cop-out to meshing two writing styles together into one—good job there “Lore”.) I felt like nothing was happening, and with two different stories going on at the same time—both moving at glacial paces—even less was happening. These were two two-hundred page stories thrown together into one book to spice things up, and I just didn’t like it. Plus, both characters were so lifeless that having them mashed up didn’t make anything more interesting—it just emphasized how boring it all was.

• Why in the world is this book called The Power of Six? There were five Garde members in this book—Four, Six, Seven, Nine, and Ten (why are there ten now?! That just complicates things even more). There are never six Garde members in the book, and the title implies that the six remaining Garde members from the original nine—but now there are ten members and three dead, so there are seven left and…who did the math for this series? Seriously?

Overall: Those three points summarize most of my feelings, so I don’t really feel the need to go one about every little thing I didn’t like about this book. I just hated the writing and the characterization and almost everything about the book, except a few select points. I think the basic plot of this series is interesting, but the execution essentially fails in every other aspect, at least in my opinion. It’s just really not worth the time.

(http://thaliasbooks.tumblr.com/post/63536772207/the-power-of-six-review)