Thursday, July 3, 2014

Emerald Green (Precious Stone Trilogy #3) by Kerstin Gier





First impressions


I started reading this series mostly because Audible was having a sale on first of a series books. The premise of time travelling seemed appealing and so I went for it. The first installment, Ruby Red, was good enough, I liked the fact that Gwendolyn wasn't just a boy driven character, even though it was obvious that they were going to get together and hence I went for the second one.

The second one, Sapphire Blue, was ok, but I think I fell more for Xemerus than the other characters. I did want to know what the whole mystery was, but the love part felt a bit forced, sadly enough.

So here we are, at the end of the series, and I am giving it a round and final 4, even though I was a bit disappointed at certain points.

Final thoughts

Let us start with the things I liked, both in general and in the series.

As I mentioned the premise of time travelling was appealing to me. The whole building of it around a secret society as well as the workings of the chronograph was nice additions, and I would've liked a bit more of background there. We didn't have it, the whole references to the "gene" and the need of blood for the chronograph to work are not explained, but maybe this is a better option than bad science.

The descriptions of the dresses, and hence Madame Rossini, were delightful. If you follow my blog or my reviews, you probably know that I am a sucker for period dressing. If you didn't know that...well now you do.

There were a couple of twists at the end of the series, a couple as in two major ones, at least from my point of view. I will not extend on this point since I do not want to give spoilers, but one of them was pretty obvious, and the other not so much, so I will give it a "meh" on plot twisting. Some people have complained about the ending, and it does feel like suddenly this was more than a trilogy, but then again it could just be that Gier likes her cliff-hangers, no?

Now, the things I didn't like. It is a bit sad when you like the secondary characters more than you do the primary ones, or at least it seems like a lot of energy is invested in characters you never got to care for, and this was the case for me. Give me more Leslie! More Xemerus...Gwendolyn and Gideon felt flat a lot of times and I felt like the story could've been carried almost without them.

As I mentioned their relationship suddenly happened and while this is a bit typical (not that is a good thing) when portraying teen love situations, it makes it even more "blah" since it has been overdone. But it gets point for not pushing on a love triangle.

So I gave it a 4, mostly because as predictable as it was at times, it was enjoyable, it gave me exactly what I was expecting from it, no more and just a little bit less. I would recommend to someone looking for light series with fun secondary characters.
Good job by Marisa Calin!
 







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