A Note:

6/2/13

I once told myself: IF I am accepted into grad school, this blog would no longer be updated. As it turns out, in April, I received news of my acceptance for the Fall 2013 semester, where I will attain a Master's degree of Science in Nutrition.

Running a blog, as many of you may already know, is a demanding side job once the excitement wears off. And once I fell out of the blogging community's loop (have you SEEN how many blogs there are now? Wow!), it was like the kiss of death. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get into a blogging routine once this happened due to the disconnect I felt from the community.

So I took a break. I struggled with the loss and with missing my blog. And then I realized I didn't have to run Book Faery to still be a book reviewer; I could read my books and post reviews online. I'm still a book review blogger, just not in the traditional sense.

I'll still be online. You can chat with me on Twitter, where I'll be posting links to my reviews and talking books. I'll also be posting links to nutrition articles. And if you'd like to connect with me where I guarantee I will post reviews, just add me as a friend on Goodreads.

So that's all, folks! It's been a fun and amazing journey, and I thank you all for listening to my thoughts about books. I hope we all can keep in touch elsewhere :)

Tori

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Tori's Review: Deceived by the Others by Jess Haines


Paperback:
352 pages
Price: $6.99
ISBN: 978-1420111897
Released: July 5, 2011
Publisher: Kensington
Author's Website: Jess Haines
Buy it: Amazon
Obtained: Author
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: H&W Investigations
Book Order:
1. Hunted by the others (book review)
2. Taken by the Others (book review)
3. Deceived by the Others

My Rating:

My Opinion:
I love the creative endings Jess has for each book. In HUNTED BY THE OTHERS (HBTO), we had a final showdown that had me rooting (out loud, I might add) for the good guys. I turned into a bloodthirsty little bitch, too, as I prayed for the villains to be murdered. In TAKEN BY THE OTHERS (TBTO), we have another kickass showdown that had me cringing away from all the gore and violence. It was actually at this point where I felt more sympathetic towards Shia. And finally, in DECEIVED BY THE OTHERS (DBTO), I was left with a feeling of intense excitement. More on that later in the review.

If anyone has read my past reviews, they might have ascertained that I have a feeling of ambivalence towards Shia; in the beginning of this series, it was her intense fear of vampires that frustrated me. For whatever reason, I was unable to feel any sort of sympathy, and thus was willing to write her off as a pain in the ass... that is, until she sucked it up and did what she had to do by the final showdown.

In TBTO, she once again went back to frustrating me because of her fear of vampires. Thankfully, that fear was not as intense, and I was willing to overlook it this time around. She also made me feel bad for her as she experienced murdering someone for the first time.

Thankfully, in DBTO, we have no intense fear of the bloodsuckers that transforms Shia into a scaredy cat. In fact, if anything, I think Shia was fairly kick ass (and this is reinforced upon reading the beginning of book 4). I could have done without all the lovey dovey pet names Chaz and Shia had for each other, and I certainly would have enjoyed a little bit more action in the beginning, but by the midway point, I was not disappointed. It seems with most UFs there is a buildup, and once a person has the patience to stick with it, they are greatly rewarded, as is the case with DBTO.

For fear of spoiling the great surprise, I will say no more about the plot. But I would like to say this: DBTO finally has me switching teams now. Eff Chaz, Royce all the way, bebe!

As for the ending, since I said earlier I would touch upon it more: it was not intense and action-packed like the prior two books. And you know what? Since this book wasn't like the others, I'm okay with that. What made me adore it almost as much as its predecessors was the sense of well... normalcy, and a slumber party. I love books that capture the essence of the latter.

I highly recommend DBTO. The author's writing skills have improved exponentially since the start of this series, and I am happy to say that the characters have grown on me, too.

2 comments:

  1. OK I am just now starting the second book, so I only ready the first 2 paragraphs of this review to avoid spoilers... and am SO HAPPY to see that you had similar opinions of Shia after the first book as I did! Her dramatic overreacting to other "races" just had me more irritated than anything, but I am so happy that you had similar issues and that you loved this one!! I look forward to it. Thanks!

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  2. Yes, definitely don't write off the series just yet! She may have overreacted a bit when around Royce (but who knows how we'd *actually* react if vamps were real and we were dating a werewolf?), but Shia definitely grows throughout the series. I can appreciate a bit of shrieking and almost-peeing-your-pants fear, so long as the heroine toughens up sooner, rather than later ;)

    I hope you enjoy TBTO, and that you love DBTO! :D

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