samantha abayenthe

So the book series starts off ok, and while it feels a little bit like Harry Potter, Shannon messenger manages to make it like her own version, which bode well for the series. Then they get to everblaze, book three, and while a few things are boring, it’s still ok. One thing to note is that while I don’t remember the plots of the books after everblaze up until book seven (way too many subplots cluttering the series), I do remember my experience of them. I don’t remember the name of book four, but that was when nearly a quarter of the eight hundred page books began to be just dialogue about the same thing over and over again. The antagonists of the story also continued to win over and over again, and it feels like the protagonist, Sophie, while being made out to have a ton of support from way too many characters that apparently each need development, is left to come up with strategies on her own that fail time and time again. It also feels very weird that it is often left up to the kids to do things, coming to a point where in book seven or eight the government has recruited a small group of kids to handle the terrorist group that has breached their security many times, this group including Sophie. While Sophie is mentally strong (literally and metaphorically), I think she focuses too much on feelings rather than self sacrifice, as well as many other characters, like when Sophie wants to risk her life to have a chance at the bad guy but no one will let her, or when she doesn’t let someone else that she knows risk their lives against the bad guy. It would be cool to see how she improves in that sense. I stopped reading near the end of book eight because I was so bored and at that point I was reading just for the plot, but if book nine ends up being an improvement, I might read it. If you’re here you probably read this super long rating, so I just want to say that you do not have to take this rating to heart. This is a rating on the whole series, not just the first book, and many people would disagree with me anyways. Depends what you like about books to like this.