Review Detail

Manhattan lies underwater (one of the only good features of this book).
The corrupt rulers of this new city live high above the flood and survive by channelling the energy of the mystics-a magic-wielding underclass who are forced to live amongst the poor in the squalor of the Depths. High in the Aeries, Aria Rose's fiance has promised that their marriage will unite two of the city's ruling dynasties. But the gaps in Aria's memory tell her that this romance isn't all it seems-and the appearance of Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic and passionate revolutionary, is about to change the course of her life for ever.

I was drawn in by the shiny and sparkly cover, and I'm sad to say that is one of the few things that will help its sales. The book is like any other of its type, cheesy and dry. It has that classic mistake of putting in an explanation moment in the middle of one of the major danger times. The romance was strange, and the characters were way to boring, all in set positions with hardly any emotions for anyone. The only character I believe in the whole thing was Davida, and she was hardly an important character in the grand scheme of things.

I think that there was a massive problem with how things were running in this future city of Manhattan. If the Mystics had so much power in the first place, why weren't they ruling from the start? I know that it says that there are not many of them, but they way the book describes how they were treated, you'd think that they were monsters of horrifying power.

There was also a major issue with the explanation moment for this book, as it was in a much more dangerous setting than any other book. They had 10 minutes to get out before armed men attacked, but instead Aria vomits, Hunter cleans it up slowly, and then they sit down and talk to each other like they weren't about to die or anything, someone please bring the milk and cookies out!

I also thought that Aria was WAY to gullible. It would of been ok if she was slightly gullible, but not this much. She took in every lie that they fed her, even the most obvious of ones. It was so clear that she wasn't in love with Thomas, even without the 'memories', anyone could see that. Her friends were awful, and yet she thought that they were marvelous and amazing, even if they called Mystics scum, and money was everything. It was all well and good that she got a job, but they helped no one, and dragged the plot back instead of pushing it forward. And when she did go out and do something, mostly just wandering aimlessly through streets looking for clues about her past, she wound up in the wrong place, and the only thing that kept her from being robbed or dying in a corner was pure luck. Even thought the book was told in her point of view, all we got were descriptions of what she was doing, with no reasonings, and we hardly got to find out what she felt half the time, her emotions hidden away so no one could find them. She was a pretty bad protagonist.

There was a lot irrelevant things happen in the book. Like dinner scenes that had no point or purpose, and decisions that were stupid and not thought out. There was way to much description of the clothes instead of the people, so we hardly got to learn anything about everything.

The story was so predictable. It was obvious her mind hap been wiped in the first few books, even in the starting pages, but Aria took more than half the book to realise half the truth. And what's with the prologue. I wasn't sure if that was the first time her and Hunter were split up, or just a glimpse of what happened in the future. Either way, it was kinda uncalled for.

I'm not excitedly looking forward to what comes next in the series, but I'm willing to give it a try, only to see if the author has taken it upon themselves to try harder.