Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-36712219-20181117233409/@comment-37530514-20181118235022

Well. I have mixed feelings about the book.

On one hand, it's Keeper. It's the characters I know and love- so it felt like finding old friends. It's the world I love. It's the writing style I love, and the guessing game with the amazing villains and collective. And it had some great moments. I can even appreciate how Shannon gave us more Fitz- I don't like him, but I disliked him more before this, and so I appreciate the character development. He's always felt flat and two dimensional to me, and while he still does, this helped. I also enjoyed the level of Keefe's loyalty she shows us in this book, and the drama with Tam at the end, and honestly the violence made their fight against the Neverseen feel so much more real. I was amazed at how Shannon kept me interested even when they were doing absolutely nothing for hundreds of pages- that's some skill!

BUT.

I really hate that we don't know anything more about the Neverseen than we did before this book. We hardly know anything new, and I mean, when you name a book "Flashback" it kind of seems like you are going to get some answers finally. But we didn't I feel like this book didn't contribute at all to the plot, except maybe setting it up for the next book. Honestly, we don't have much more to go off of than we did with Nightfall.

Not only that, but I really thought this would be the book when they finally start to gain the upper hand. It felt like Shannon was trying to send that message, with the cover and the misleading teasers ( "I'm tired of being weak," Sophie whispered. "I want to fight back—and I mean really fight."/ "The Neverseen are never going to stop- not until they've destroyed everything and taken over. And people like that... you can't beat them by playing it safe.") And so I felt really disappointed when it was just the same thing over again- they totally just played into the Neverseen's hands. Its getting kind of old- And Alvar just felt like the final nail in the coffin.

While as a Keefoster shipper, the Sophitz was excruciating, I understood why she did it. To me, that's not what makes the book bad (though we could've done without some mushiness, and it did make Sophie seem weak- different discussion) like I hear lots of people saying. I just think, book seven is about the time when things need to start changing. And they didn't. It just felt like the same thing over, which is not what I'm used to from Shannon Messenger.