midori-se7en - reviewed on 4/7/2009 + 8 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

Let me start out by saying that I love, love, love this series! It caught me right away, hook, line, and sinker, and I devoured it in less than a week. I adored everything about it, from the world, to the reverse in gender roles, to the characters, to the plot-line. It was just unique and beautifully crafted. Don't get me wrong, the writing had its fair share of flaws (i.e., the repetitive use of certain words and phrases, such as "crooned" and "snarled") and there were bits and pieces of the plot that were kind of left dangling, but I was seriously enraptured. While the world was intriguing and the use of the jewels was interesting, I think I loved the characters most of all, especially Daemon. I loved Daemon. Such a poor, tortured boy...he's really my favorite type of hero...or anti-hero, as it were.

At first I was ambivalent about the fact that you never got to see anything from Jaenelle's perspective, but I eventually decided that it was better that way. Reading stuff from her perspective would have made her seem more human and, really, she was so larger than life and powerful that it would have taken away from her as a character. Besides that, I didn't mind that the majority of it was told from the perspective of the three most important men in her life. It was fitting, since she basically becomes the center of their worlds.

This is really dark fantasy, though. It doesn't shy away from rape and child molestation and violence and gore. Definitely not for the faint of heart or people particularly sensitive to this kind of subject matter. There were a few disappointments here and there and the second book dragged for me at times, but as a whole this series was just incredible and riveting to me. There was enough romance to keep me satisfied, but it certainly wasn't the focal point. In fact, the series had a bit of just about everything- romance, horror, drama, comedy, action- and I think that's a huge part of why I liked it so much. Romance novels and the typical plot-lines that you see in them have seriously started to annoy and disappoint me, which is why I've tried to move onto other genres, like fantasy and sci-fi with a splash of romance thrown in.

Anyway, I definitely recommend this to dark fantasy fans. If you're anything like me, you'll love it!

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