Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: July 12, 2011
Format: Kindle
Pages: 400
Source: Download Destination
Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy
Review Date: March 12, 2012
Rating: 3 bookmarks
I'm going to talk about some specific things in this review, so if you haven't read it and spoilers aren’t your thing, stop reading now. I finished out these series on audio, same as the previous two books. This book was decent and I was sufficiently happy (with some reservations) about the end of this book. Beyond, Grace, Sam, Cole and Isabel, this time we get a 5th narrator, Shelby! Her parts are small and in between, but it’s interesting to get her POV. I had wondered what happened to her, she wasn’t in the last book at all. Every book, it seems to have gotten a little more complex, in a good way. Crazy Shelby trying to kill all the new wolves. She is just hateful and sad. She kills Olivia while she’s human. She attempted to kill Grace when she turned human as well.
With the a date set to hunt the wolves, I would have never guessed that Officer Koenig (not sure on that spelling) would come to the wolves rescue with another place for them to go. How of convenient that he inherited a entire resort, his family’s old business, just in time to sell it to the wolves our of the kindness of his heart. Not only a resort, but a resort on a peninsula that is perfectly fenced off. I did think it was strange that all the sudden he started to put the pieces together and guess about the wolves existence. I didn’t really like how the author explained that. I’d rather him see Grace out somewhere just after she’d shifted. Him figuring it out by actually seeing it seems a little bit more believable and dramatic.
In my humble opinion, Cole actually grows the most emotionally in this book. You know that saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same? That is how Cole is. He starts to care for Isabel, Grace, Sam and the wolves. Yet while he does some important things for his friends and the pack, like his quest to find a cure, he also remains childlike and kind of rude most of the time. If I recall correctly, Cole finds that the way the “wolf” takes over the human body is like malaria…odd. Who would have thought, the sad and tormented Cole, in the end would being the hero?!
On a different note, I liked Isabel a little bit more in this book. She is like Cole in a lot of ways. Self absorbed, rude and just cuts to the bone with her words. Yet at that same time, she steps up and helps those who she considers her friends. She goes against her father to help the wolves. So even though she is young in many ways, she shows her maturity here and there.
Sam and Grace are really showing to be a little bit older in this book, and I like it. The content is still very mild for the YA readers, but I do like that they have grown up a little over the course of the books.
Regarding Sam and his musical talents, in the last book, we got small song clips from Sam, in this book we get some odd ball Germany passages inserted here an there…I could do without these. I didn’t really grasp the purpose of them. They really didn’t impact the story either way. In my opinion these passages of German were filler, they weren’t really needed. Poor Sam, is being accused and suspected of having something to do with the “disappearances” of both Olivia and Grace. Basically the whole town thinks that he was involved. I can see why, but I’m surprised he only had that one incident with Olivia’s brother. In addition to all of these things going on with saving the wolves, Sam has to cope with his feeling about how Beck turned him. I wish we got to know more about him. It seemed Maggie was heading us in that direction for a minute, then it changed. We didn’t get into the history of Beck as I thought we would.
It’s too funny how Rachel was told that Grace was a wolf. She really was scared that Sam would kidnap her or leave her to be killed by wolves. The parts with Rachel, I believe were also kind of thrown in for filler. When Grace returns to her home and confronts her parents, the story would have been much more powerful if Sam accompanied her instead of Rachel. That whole “Rachel is the referee” thing was pointless. She stood there almost the entire time holding Grace’s parents cat, not saying much at all. Honestly, I would not have missed Rachel if she weren’t in the book at all. Not to mention how horrible and ridiculous Grace’s parents are.
There is some mystery at the very end of the book. It’s clear that Grace and Sam are together. Graces parents accept him as much as they can. Their relationship seems all wrapped up in a nice little bow except for one thing. Obviously during this book Grace was a wolf off and on for a lot of the book. After hearing several times about Cole’s theory of how the “wolf” works in the body, we are lead to believe that the cure they thought up might work. In the end, we know that Grace will take the cure as a wolf in the winter in hopes to become human forever and suppress the wolf like Sam did. We’re left to assume what we want. It could really go either way. Personally, how bubble gum the end was, I’ll assume it worked and they lived happily ever after. Did I just give away the end? Whoops. LOL You were warned. Personally, since the ending was headed in the direction of roses and candy already, I would have preferred the author to go one step further and actually give us a solid ended.
Bottom line, I liked it, but there wasn’t much depth there. Don’t expect too much.
Release Date: July 12, 2011
Format: Kindle
Pages: 400
Source: Download Destination
Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy
Review Date: March 12, 2012
Rating: 3 bookmarks
I'm going to talk about some specific things in this review, so if you haven't read it and spoilers aren’t your thing, stop reading now. I finished out these series on audio, same as the previous two books. This book was decent and I was sufficiently happy (with some reservations) about the end of this book. Beyond, Grace, Sam, Cole and Isabel, this time we get a 5th narrator, Shelby! Her parts are small and in between, but it’s interesting to get her POV. I had wondered what happened to her, she wasn’t in the last book at all. Every book, it seems to have gotten a little more complex, in a good way. Crazy Shelby trying to kill all the new wolves. She is just hateful and sad. She kills Olivia while she’s human. She attempted to kill Grace when she turned human as well.
With the a date set to hunt the wolves, I would have never guessed that Officer Koenig (not sure on that spelling) would come to the wolves rescue with another place for them to go. How of convenient that he inherited a entire resort, his family’s old business, just in time to sell it to the wolves our of the kindness of his heart. Not only a resort, but a resort on a peninsula that is perfectly fenced off. I did think it was strange that all the sudden he started to put the pieces together and guess about the wolves existence. I didn’t really like how the author explained that. I’d rather him see Grace out somewhere just after she’d shifted. Him figuring it out by actually seeing it seems a little bit more believable and dramatic.
In my humble opinion, Cole actually grows the most emotionally in this book. You know that saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same? That is how Cole is. He starts to care for Isabel, Grace, Sam and the wolves. Yet while he does some important things for his friends and the pack, like his quest to find a cure, he also remains childlike and kind of rude most of the time. If I recall correctly, Cole finds that the way the “wolf” takes over the human body is like malaria…odd. Who would have thought, the sad and tormented Cole, in the end would being the hero?!
On a different note, I liked Isabel a little bit more in this book. She is like Cole in a lot of ways. Self absorbed, rude and just cuts to the bone with her words. Yet at that same time, she steps up and helps those who she considers her friends. She goes against her father to help the wolves. So even though she is young in many ways, she shows her maturity here and there.
Sam and Grace are really showing to be a little bit older in this book, and I like it. The content is still very mild for the YA readers, but I do like that they have grown up a little over the course of the books.
Regarding Sam and his musical talents, in the last book, we got small song clips from Sam, in this book we get some odd ball Germany passages inserted here an there…I could do without these. I didn’t really grasp the purpose of them. They really didn’t impact the story either way. In my opinion these passages of German were filler, they weren’t really needed. Poor Sam, is being accused and suspected of having something to do with the “disappearances” of both Olivia and Grace. Basically the whole town thinks that he was involved. I can see why, but I’m surprised he only had that one incident with Olivia’s brother. In addition to all of these things going on with saving the wolves, Sam has to cope with his feeling about how Beck turned him. I wish we got to know more about him. It seemed Maggie was heading us in that direction for a minute, then it changed. We didn’t get into the history of Beck as I thought we would.
It’s too funny how Rachel was told that Grace was a wolf. She really was scared that Sam would kidnap her or leave her to be killed by wolves. The parts with Rachel, I believe were also kind of thrown in for filler. When Grace returns to her home and confronts her parents, the story would have been much more powerful if Sam accompanied her instead of Rachel. That whole “Rachel is the referee” thing was pointless. She stood there almost the entire time holding Grace’s parents cat, not saying much at all. Honestly, I would not have missed Rachel if she weren’t in the book at all. Not to mention how horrible and ridiculous Grace’s parents are.
There is some mystery at the very end of the book. It’s clear that Grace and Sam are together. Graces parents accept him as much as they can. Their relationship seems all wrapped up in a nice little bow except for one thing. Obviously during this book Grace was a wolf off and on for a lot of the book. After hearing several times about Cole’s theory of how the “wolf” works in the body, we are lead to believe that the cure they thought up might work. In the end, we know that Grace will take the cure as a wolf in the winter in hopes to become human forever and suppress the wolf like Sam did. We’re left to assume what we want. It could really go either way. Personally, how bubble gum the end was, I’ll assume it worked and they lived happily ever after. Did I just give away the end? Whoops. LOL You were warned. Personally, since the ending was headed in the direction of roses and candy already, I would have preferred the author to go one step further and actually give us a solid ended.
Bottom line, I liked it, but there wasn’t much depth there. Don’t expect too much.
Get the paperback version here: Forever (Wolves of Mercy Falls, Book 3)
