From the Earth to the Shadows by Amanda Hocking
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was given this ARC by the publisher in return for an honest review.
I was hoping for a nail-biting conclusion to this duology, but sadly the story got lost along the way.
I found the main character to be inconsistent from the first book to the second one. All of a sudden, talk revolved around her maybe/almost boyfriend and how happy she was to be with him and his almost smile lifts the corners of his mouth etc. etc. I get it, having new and exciting feelings for someone can take over, but please not for the sake of an entire book when it’s supposed to be about Valkyries and demons and gods and saving the world.
The plot was there and then it wasn’t. Whenever it got exciting or dangerous or difficult a solution was found quickly or rather the solution found the obstacle and on again it went with endless descriptions not of the scenery to expand the world building, but of Malin’s thoughts and feelings. I grew tired of it.
The writing was too long-winded. Small chapters broke up the play-by-play details that seem to skip over the best parts, but halfway through the book I was surprised that more time was spent describing and not creating action.
Overall, I’m sad that the second part of this story wasn’t as good as the first one and barely kept my attention. It was light read, because nothing complicated happened. I would suggest it for light reading.
