Posted on goodreads bc Amazon would not let me for some fucking reason. So, *ahem*….
Bought ARC through Read the Pixels event.
Absolutely great book. Let’s start there. This is the second half of the previous book that, due to length, the publisher forced Ms. Chance to break in 2. Ride the Storm is over 600 pages, not a quick read. Whereas the last book set up everything with only a few bits of plot resolved, this book went forward in leaps and bounds. It was fast paced and detailed. There is betrayal and heartbreak, revelations about her parents and others in her life. We meet new characters that may forever change the dynamics Cassie has with the Circle and Jonas. New allies are picked up along the way and Cassie puts in motion ways to protect her old ones from “friendly fire”. I absolutely loved this book…..BUT it does take a while to get several big story arcs concluded. There were a few times that I felt there were extra pages and details that seemed superfluous to the point while reading I had wished the author was able to combine one of two events so to trim down a hundred pages. Overall a good 4 out of 5 stars. It would have been 4.5 out of 5 but the small cliff hanger at the end (set up like the ones in the early books) was annoying especially since it relates to one of the main story arcs that had only partially resolved. The ambiguity made me want to grind my teeth.
I highly recommend this book to read especially if you were upset about the lack of resolution in the previous book.
***Mild spoiler below****
This book will nearly resolve the love triangle. I say nearly because the small cliff hanger at the end implies complications that may hinder her choice. It may not be what you expect or what you hoped for.
Ok, so this is helpful…of course for those of us who have been waiting a long time, we kinda knew most of that. Given that Karen has been diligently plugging away at the publisher for a long time…I would have been shocked if it was LESS than 600 pages. And given that Karen isn’t sure of publishing another one…well the cliff hanger is gonna suck! No, honestly…
Apollo and Artemis – the golden twins; children of Leto and Zeus. Both defended their mother’s honour when Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, boasted of having more and better children than Leto. The twins killed Niobe’s children, leaving her to weep eternally.
Artemis and Apollo remained close to each other always. Both siblings would become associated with the skill of archery, and they enjoyed hunting together. Artemis grew to become the virgin goddess of the hunt, of wild animals, and of childbirth and Apollo was the god of music, prophecy, healing, and youth. He never married, but he was by no means a celibate. He fathered more than a dozen children by at least nine different partners (his most famous courtship was that of Daphne who, rather than submit to him, chose to transform herself into a laurel tree).
Hey, I thought this might be a little relevant #Karen Chance Fans
For me, the Holocaust is a real emotional thing. I had no grandparents growing up, but we spent lots of time in our apartments in Miami in a Jewish enclave, I guess. It was a gated community on North Miami Beach with three towers, a little convenience store, a restaurant and pool, and Dock slips for boats. And so my babysitters were retired Jewish retirees, most of whom were holocaust survivors. I was 2 or 3, the first time I heard of the Holocaust. I was spending the night with the Fusses, whom I called Grandma and Grandpa Fuss. I had taken a number and written numbers on my arm, to be like them. I didn’t understand why it horrified these two Holocaust survivors. I still remember the tears pouring down Grandma Fusses face as she scrubbed my arm with a sponge from the kitchen. Eventually, I learned their story. Two people who were the only survivors of their families who found love after the camps. I heard about their parents and siblings who died in the camps. I remember that one of their sisters was a ballerina. She was a teenager when she went into the camps and she ade it through the initial separation because a guard thought she was beautiful. As an adult, I know what that meant but as a child I remember thinking it was so beautiful that she gave the food to her sister. He would take her to his office and have her dance for him. She would come back with extra food for grandma Fuss and cry herself to sleep. She never made it out of the camps. And though it hurt, Grandma Fuss to tell me that story, she did it in whispers and with tears. She told me it was my job to remember her sister, the ballerina, always and forever a teenager. I was in 1st grade before I thought of it again, in a meaningful way. I went to school in our temples basement in Dunwoody, Georgia. and one Monday we didn’t have school. Over the weekend someone had broken in and defaced desks, couches and chalkboards with swastikas. I saw that symbol and remembered Grandma Fusses tears. And I knew that it was evil and I was hated. I never understood what those teenagers were thinking as they painted a symbol of hate or scratched it into surfaces. I am shocked and horrified at the news today that Hitler never gassed his own people. I know that is not true. I am one generation removed from the survivors. Their children were my parents generation. As we remember our flight from Egypt this week, so too do Jews remember the Holocaust. Last year, Elie Wiesel , a Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Laureate author, died. He has many quotes…too many to list about why Jews wrote down their memories for my generation and forward. Read his Nobel speech, or even just the quotes that come up on google. We remember the generation lost. All 6,000,000 of them. Men and women, Mothers and Fathers, Children and Artists, Brothers and Sisters. But I want to be real here. These are the approximate numbers: Number of Deaths Jews: up to 6 million Soviet civilians: around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews) Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers) Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites) Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina): 312,000 People with disabilities living in institutions: up to 250,000 Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–220,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses: Around 1,900 Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials: at least 70,000 German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory: undetermined Homosexuals: hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above) But, Hitler never used chemical weapons on his own people https://www.quora.com/Why-should-we-never-forget-the-Holocaust
Happy Passover from the White House. Sean Spicer claims Hitler “didn’t use chemical weapons on his own people.” Uh, GAS CHAMBERS anyone? Or are we reading Richard Spencer’s history books now?
This is what happens when you elect white nationalists and the alt. reich to run the country.
Dory and Cassie are going to have their first “official” introduction. Probably in RtS, but possibly in the next Dory book? Either way, it’s bound to be equal parts intense and likely pretty funny (in a painfully awkward way).
I think that from Dory’s POV there is definitely going to be some resentment. First, that her father never bothered to tell her (though I highly doubt she’ll be surprised by this); and second that this is the waifish little blonde that sent her ass out to pasture, as it were. But, I don’t figure Dory to be the type to see any of Mircea’s romantic entanglements as anything but a passing thing, so I doubt (aside from understandable wariness of her power) that Dory will give her much thought at all.
Cassie on the other hand, is going to be embarrassed as hell that she spent months worrying about Mircea’s “mistress”, just to end up shifting his dhamphir daughter (and new senate member) to a cow field. After the initial embarrassment however, I think her primary emotions are going to be centered on a general feeling of betrayal. How could he fail to mention to her that he had a daughter? He had plenty of opportunity, he told her so much about his history, he claimed that she knew him better than most, so why leave this monumental detail out? Was it just a side effect of his secretive nature, or because he actually doesn’t trust her? I have a feeling this is really going to eat at her, and likely lead to quite a reckoning between Cassie and Mircea.
So, maybe I’m wrong, but…Cassie has been keeping quite a bit from Mircea as well. As for Dory, well Radu told her in book 1 that if she kept up with the family she would already know about the “whole time line thing” and I think she’s gonna be pretty damn busy integrating Dorina. And Cassie has had opportunities to talk to Mircea and chosen not to. I think that the revelation that Marco and Rico make in book 7 is more important. Mircea told them everything he knows about whats going on so they can protect Cassie, but they are “her men”. They aren’t reporting on her actions to Mircea. So, maybe, she could have brought them into the loop. After all. Marco gives her the tears.
My absolute favourite in the series has to be the revelation at the end of Hunt the Moon. It suddenly made everything fall into place and make sense, and rounded off a topic both highly relevant to the plot and very important to Cassie.
“My power wasn’t some alien thing, I thought, watching the sky in wonder. It wasn’t borrowed from another or stolen from a better candidate. There was no better candidate; there never would be. It had flowed away from Myra as soon as it saw me, like the tide when the moon comes out. Because it was mine—it was mine; it knew it was mine.” – Karen Chance, Hunt the Moon.
The revelation had such a cathartic, enlightening effect (literally enlightening too, note KC’s pathetic fallacy in relation to the Moon in the scene), and as Cassie’s thoughts summarize, she has finally understood her place in the world, accepted her role as her own, and found herself. Such an amazingly pivotal moment, coming so surprisingly late in the series (book 5!), it really raises huge questions as to what other major bombshells the series has in store.
I view the whole series as Cassie learning who she is. i don’t agree with all the romance people who see the triangle and root for one person or the other. Cassie is who I root for. And Cassie has a completely unique viewpoint. And as Cassie grows into her own, she going to keep making choices that make people mad. But in this book she realizes, finally, that it isn’t about the party or the dress, or even who her mother is. Its about her. Its about finding that one place to stand. If you die, you die. But Cassie is the Pythia. Period. End of Report. F*ck everyone else. and we see more of that in the later books…I can’t wait to see what happens next. And I totally root for Cassie when she says that she isn’t releasing anyone from their pledges and no one is dying for her damn it!
