Alisi ☆ wants to read too many books ☆'s Reviews > A Symphony of Echoes

I didn't like this one half as much as the one before. It was just so disjointed and ... meh. It actually left me not really wanting to read book three.

The issues here are mostly the plot and all the filler stuff that happens for no reason. And there are some underlying world building problems.

It starts out good but after that, it really, really slows down. That first part seemed to mainly be one example of a later "problem" but it really didn't make sense. I actually forgot about that, which should tell you how important the beginning is to this book (that it's the best part of the book and one is apt to forget it because it has nothing to do with the book afterward.)

There are a bunch of characters that pop up for no real reason. They just pop up, run a tiny muck (or, hell, don't run amok at all), and then are either gone or die. The doctor that shows up and does a little damage, then he's dispatched quickly (this after touting the doctor up as being ubber evil.) One of the villains from book 1 reappears (when she's supposedly dead) and does absolutely nothing except die. Seriously. She just stands there with her back to the MC. Ronan isn't just in this book at all. Her partner, whom seemed so angsty and stuff, goes away rather sooner than later.

All these people have very little to do with this actual "plot" of this book. It was more filler. The author knew she had to write a certain amount of words and so she filled the book with all these stupid, boring scenes.

Hell, I have no idea why she went to Elizabethan England. Or maybe that's better put that I don't think the reason why was all that good and there was no real climax to it.

Paradox is a term used in this book every other paragraph yet I find the excuse the author gives for why History hasn't slapped Ronan down is extremely weak and ridiculous. If History can materialize a huge rock out of the sky, and most of the people working at St. Mary's die horrifying deaths because they try to push a child out of the way, I have an incredibly hard time with the idea that History just can't handle Ronan so she's letting St. Mary's deal with it.

Seriously. That's the reason the author gives for letting Ronan goes run amok. It's because History needs Max to fix it. It apparently can't do anything.

I mean, really? That's the shittiest excuse I've heard.