Rowina Female, 26, Single. Napoli, Italy

Dark Currents has made me question the difference between loving an author and living his/her works.
I thought I loved Jacqueline Carey, and I'm still not ready to say I don't. But if loving an author means falling in love with each and everyone of his books, then I can't say I do, either.
Despite having been (and still being) a Kushiel's legacy obsessed, already with the Naamah trilogy I experienced some uncertainty.
Now, Dark Currents has left me uncertain, too.
I think a big part on this is played by Daisy, the book's protagonist and pov. I did't really bond with her, didn't feel for her. And some of her catch-phrases actually got under my skin most of time, like that insufferable "gah", and her un proportioned use of "okay". Daisy can be badass, but for some reasons he chooses not to be; I understand her being worried about having the power to unleash armageddon and all, if she gets too pissed and gives in to temptation. But there should be middle-ground. There should be a way where she can be bad-ass -and she potentially is!- and careful without becoming annoying. At the beginning of the book, I had a hard time going on mostly because I couldn't bond with Daisy, since for a good half the book is far from packed with action.
As for the action itself: JC has the chance of not being predictable, the ability to deliver exactly when she needs to; in DC she sticks to it unfailingly. Still, she made the mistake of placing a few scenes that seemed basically there to fill the pages. One example is the visit Daisy pays to Mr. Leary to talk about the spider from her mom's reading of the cards. She goes there and leaves with exactly the same conclusion, having known all the while that the reading was literal and what the spider referred to. The mistake is not so much in having written the scene: it was mostly because Daisy was already SURE about the card's meaning, and the scene at Mr. Leary's did nothing to confirm or undermine her conclusion.
Also little disappointing is the world-building and the mythology in the book: there much on anything in Dark Currents -werewolves, vampires, ghouls, demons, fairies... Most of them are depicted using big clichés -secluded wolves clans, vampires holding a bordello, tricky fairies with pointed teeth. Deja-vu.
On the bright side, there is a selection of characters I loved: Lurine, Cody, even Stephen -although he seems to come straight out of a Vampire Diaries episode, and is indeed a little of a cliché character, what with the haunted soul looking for redemption- I still couldn't help but like him very much.

I think it's likely my opinion about this book is biased by the fact that I'm not so much into Urban Fantasy, and by the high standard Anne Bishop's Written in Red has set -since i read it
before this one.
Still, it was a rather enjoyable reading, especially from around 40% of the book where a little more action starts taking place, and I'm sure I'll read the second volume.

Ho letto qualche altra recensione qui su anobii, e su Goodreads, e noto che una parte dei lettori -quelli che non hanno conferito cinque stelle- hanno praticamente la mia stessa opinione su questo libro.
Grandi potenzialità, un'idea originale di mescolare la mitologia greca all'era moderna, che è poi ciò che mi ha spinta a comprare il libro, e uno stile abbastanza pulito, con picchi di lirica che non guastano (quasi) mai.
Ma il plot è da mal di testa!
Il libro parte bene, incentrato sulla protagonista, coi flashback e la backstory. Ma nonappena Alice sbarca a Londra, è un casino dopo l'altro. Ho faticato a riprendere il libro in mano e a terminarlo, mi tenevo la fronte in mano gemendo dalla psicologica sofferenza. Le fughe, i ribaltamenti, i tradimenti. Capisco il voler
farcire un libro di azione e colpi di scena imprevedibili, ma così è troppo! Deve esserci un minimo di senso, di coerenza, di filo logico. Soprattutto nell'urban-fantasy, dove si applicano in parte le regole del mondo reale, e non quelle di un universo fantastico, aperto all'immaginazione dell'autore.
Anche il tentativo di rendere la protagonista quanto più reale e "terra terra" possibile, alla fine si è esasperato, e Alice viene fuori più simile ad una super-antieroina, che si fa manovrare con estrema facilità da chi le sta intorno. Se una è cazzuta come lei, fino ad un certo punto dovrebbe lasciarsi manipolare.
Insomma, gli elementi di verosimiglianza non si sprecano, ed è un peccato perché il potenziale c'era, e Falconi non scrive di certo male.
Dubito tuttavia che spenderò un'altra cifra indecente per il sequel: questo non è valso i suoi 17€, ed essendo sempre più abituata a leggere in lingua originale, spendere più di 10€ per un libro è ormai cosa rara per me, e che consacro solo alle nuove uscite di pochi eletti autori preferiti.
Peccato.

I've had this book in my wish list for a month. And then I gave up and bought it, seeing as so many good reviews kept blossoming. That was a double-edged knife, though: so many good reviews meant if I didn't like the book, it would be a double disappointment.
Instead, I loved The Archived.
Schwab constructed an amazingly imaginative world, where modern and fantasy mingle, tinted in dark, shiny shades. A book worth Neil Gaiman's hug, a book which can compete with Garth Nyx's Old Kingdom's trilogy. Well written, enticing, it kept me glued for 24 hours, and even when I couldn't read, the world of the Outer, the Narrows and the Archive stayed with me, like I was roaming it too along with Mac.
The characters are believable, well constructed. The writing is fast-paced, keeps you reading despite yourself.
The only criticism I could move -If I can even call it that- is that the book is too short, the plot too fast. It doesn't last long enough and makes you want more.
Now, while there seem to be room for a second book, the ending does conclude the narrative plot of the book. I wouldn't mind reading a second book, meeting Mac and Wes again, going back to the Archive to chat with Roland. But Schwab closed all the open questions, and she would have to be very, very good at opening new ones that were believable and as enticing, and still make the book gripping. Not an easy task.
Anyway, this has been one of the best books I've read in years, and I haven't been so glued to one since I read The Hunger Games trilogy last year.
A thousand times recommended!

Boh.
The same things over and over again: the book starts with friends and boys situations/issues/gossip, goes on with thoughts and a few new happenings. Then, 100 pages from the end, the book reaches the climax, with the fight against evil and the casting of a circle and a fight. Just to finish where it started: a victory and/or a loss but nothing really solved, Neferet still alive, and Zoey again divided between the boys of her life.
I don't know how long they want to push the series, but imho it should have ended already.
Three stars only because the last hundred pages got me glued.

I don't know what is it with dystopian writers that they think they should stick to a certain structure throughout all three books of a trilogy, why they even think they should keep the trilogy structure in the first place, and why they all seem to stick to a certain length for all three books.
This is terribly frustrating, because every single time I reach the end of a trilogy, It seems to me that book three has just started. That there are so many, many strings left untied, so many things I wanted to know and see happen and that didn't.
I love this book, I truly did. Not as much as I loved Matched and surely more than I did Crossed. But at about 85% of it I was SURE it was not going to end just here and now, despite the saga being presented as a trilogy. Instead, the book finished just when I started enjoying it, and I was left with such a sense of incompleteness that was more, and worse, than the usual sense of farewell that I usually feel when I get to the end of a good saga, one i truly loved.
Miss Condie did a great job, but had she
written 200 more pages, or one more book altogether, I would have been really glad. I just feel there are too many things left unsaid, too many open questions, and i feel the loss of friends I have known for too short a time.
Ultimately, I loved this trilogy, would recommend it to friends, but it definitely left me hungry for more and unsatisfied.