I can't make up my mind about whether I hated or loved this book. I was depressed for a couple of weeks after reading it so its safe to say it left a mark on me. This should mean it is a good book since it affected me to that level but i truly hated the direction it took and the reason for that is what happened to Zachary in it. To me it felt like Kristen Britain broke his character and it broke my heart cause I truly love Zachary. The aftermath of his rape left me feeling the way I did after reading the rape scene in Patricia Briggs Mercedes Thompson story. Unfortunately Briggs wasn't able to recover her series to my satisfaction after that. Maybe Kristen Britain can.
To summarize this is what happens in Blackveil: Zachary gets shot by a poisoned arrow and goes into some kind of coma. While he is in a coma his advisors and that awful, awful creature Estora marries him and then goes on and has sex with him while he is in a painful haze and dreaming of Karigan. Another word for taking advantage of someone like that is rape. He wakes up and fires his advisors but agrees to stay married.
There are so many things that went wrong there.
1- The rape was horrific. I came very close to crying reading it. It was just so sad. He just lies there totally helpless while he is completely betrayed by his advisers and taken advantage of.
2- Estora: I used to feel sorry for her but this just turned her into a total villain. I don't care how much she loves him. Anyone who takes advantage of a comatose person like that is a hateful, hateful person. If that was Britain's goal - to transform Estora into a villain then bravo! But, if she expects us to just let her be the nice and just and perfect little Queen in the next book I am not going to continue reading the series. Also, she can't continue on this line of how Estora was trapped into this as a noblewoman with no other options. She had options. She did not avail herself of any of her options because she is a power hungry selfish person. She trapped him. Britain as the author was more than capable of creating alternatives. But she didn't and instead we are stuck with a broken Zachary stuck in a marriage without his consent.
3- Mapstone: needs to stop babying Zachary. Yes, she raised him but come on! he is thirty something. Her supporting Estora and Estora's actions also disgusted me. How can you be okay with that happening to someone you think of as your little brother. I am starting to hate Mapstone more and more and she is supposedly one of the good guys.
4- Zachary needs to develop more of a spine as a King. He didn't seem to care that he was raped -unless he is biding time for the whole possible pregnancy to be proven impossible - it seems so depressing to see him be completely all right with this strange marriage. I am hoping this awful thing that happened to him will make him realize more about his own wishes and future and maybe he can act towards those instead of letting awful things happen to him and not doing anything about them. There needs to be some kind of emotional resolution to this. Nothing was offered in Blackveil. I hate Estora enough that I would completely accept it if he kills her. It would make me like him more.
5- Karigan and Zachary - if Zachary is just gonna go with this screwed up marriage that pretty much destroys any hope of happy future for Karigan. It seemed like with all the other blossoming romances it was established that only Zachary will do for Karigan and if he doesn't change course the future seems very unhappy for our Karigan. I am unsure if I want to read 3/4 more books with Karigan yearning for something that she will never ever have. By breaking Zachary like that she destroyed so much more than just him. Britain also ruined any happiness for Karigan and i am unsure i want to keep reading more books about her with no future.
6- If Karigan is to have some semblance of a happy ending Estora dying seems like a natural solution to this screwed up situation that Britain has created. If she dies though her raping Zachary would be a needless plot twist -Zachary did not need to be broken for her to die.Plus she would be like a martyr and probably make Karigan look bad. And it would be such a cheat of a move for Britain to make.
Either way the future of the series is pretty despondent. The strange cliff hanger ending and the fact that we have to wait another 4-5 years for the next books doubles nay quadruples that despondency. Moreover, this book only brought forth so many changes that the series is evolving into something very different from the first three books. The added perspectives and adventures of Amberhill and Colin seem forced and unnecessary and not at all interesting. I wish she would just keep telling Karigan's story as the first couple of books did without forcing other story lines that are way too complex and added way too late in the series.
For such a long book it seemed the characters and the relationships went backwards instead of forward. The lack of a resolution at the end just adds on to that. I am looking forward to the rest of the series because I'd like to trust her to resolve the chaos that she created in this book. Book 1-3 were quite good so i guess she was due to screw up one. I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she knows what she is doing as I keep my fingers crossed. This is her world after all and next 4/5 years will hopefully dissipate the bitter taste Blackveil left in my mouth so I can read her next volume with a much more open mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment