Ascend

Ascend

by Amanda Hocking

With Wendy's wedding approaching and war on the horizon, she must now make preparations to keep her people from dying.  The choices she makes now will either guarantee the future of the Trylle or destroy them completely.

Final thoughts:  Ugh.  I am so disappointed by this book.  It was an absolute mess.  Hocking seems to have realized late in the game that she needed to resolve points from her first two books in this trilogy and she kind of just jams those resolutions in without any honest flow.  There's also a Bella Swan element here of Wendy constantly wanting to go out and save the day on her own and having the men who love her constantly tell her they won't lose her like that and "never do that again".  

Hocking also seems to have no idea about the realities of war and she even seems to forget the time period she's in.  A whole city has been attacked and Wendy first sends 10 people out to go help them.  Those 10 people come across the attackers in a forest and surprise them.  But if everyone is driving cars and cities aren't that far away, how come the attackers stopped at all and how did the 10 scouts (who are in cars driving on roads) just happen to come across them in the forest?  Later, Wendy herself goes out to the town, makes one round in the palace ballroom that's being used as a hospice, and then she goes out and cleans the town.  Yup.  She and the others clean.  No rescuing of anyone.  No burying.  Cleaning.

The romance part isn't handled well either.  Wendy has three guys in her life, but the person she seemed to want the most for the first two books is just kind of there in this one and she's suddenly deeply in love with someone else.  

Another similarity to Meyer's work is the seeming need for everyone to have a happy ending.  Breaking Dawn annoyed me because everyone ended up happy.  Ascend is similar.  All things work out for everyone good and nice.  Bad guys are no longer around and/or bad.  Blah blah blah.  I could go on and on for days about the problems in this book.

Hocking needs an editor desperately.  Her FAQ says that she writes each book in about three weeks.  It really shows in this one.  Writing a book and self-publishing it doesn't mean it's necessarily worth reading and this one isn't.

Rating: 2/5