REVIEW: Skin Game by Jim Butcher

Skin Game by Jim Butcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book 15 was enjoyable but it was not one of the best books of the series. I had several issues with the characters.

The Characters

+ Dresden

I'm sick of Dresden's self-reproach. I know it's a personality flaw and it's never leaving because it's book fucking 15 and still no sign of self-esteem growth but I really wish it would. I'm tired of Urban Fantasy protags hating themselves for simply existing.

Secondly, he spent a year in Demonreach and all he learned was parkour. Granted, he did display a few new spells throughout the book, but these ice spells were still the same blunt force type as his fire spells. He should have learned other types of spells, types that would allow him to detect enemies (e.g. heat-seeking sight), summon familiars (e.g. golems or shikigami), make obstacles (e.g. fog or stalagmites), etc. There's more to magic than calling up a buttload of fire and ice to blast at enemies. For fuck sake, learn a healing spell already!

I couldn't believe parkour was all that he learned. Dresden is a piss-poor wizard. I hate how Dresden uses the excuse that he might kill people if he goes all out because of his inner demon. Yeah, right. It's not as if burning enemies to cinders or icing them to shards aren't deadly, which Dresden does with no hesitation and does often.

Dresden had access to Demonreach, an ageless entity of immeasurable knowledge, and he did nothing with it. For someone who believed the Winter Knight job would make him dark and twisted, he didn't research a way out of it. For someone who regularly told the reader Mab is vindictive and merciless, he put more effort into antagonizing the queen faerie than following his common sense.

I still like Dresden but he disappointed me greatly. The only reason he did not anger me as much as he could have was because I was too busy being annoyed with Nicodemus and infuriated with Butters. Plus, there was mpreg, which was hilarious.

+ Nicodemus

I know a villain is a poor excuse for a villain when I could have done better in his place. There were several ways I thought Nicky could have screwed Dresden. For instance, he could have made Dresden, as his oath-bound accomplice, kill Butters under the idea that Dresden needed to put down anyone who threatened the heist. And not just Butters, Nicky could have twisted the oath in a way that would force Dresden to choose between his friends and obeying the oath where Dresden would obviously choose his friends but would then die for his choice.

Nicky regressed severely. Instead of delicious deception, most of his evil acts were all blunt force that is emblematic of a mortal muscle-head. What little deception he did was predictable which totally defeated the purpose of deception.

Finally, sacrificing that one person was the stupidest thing he could have done. He couldn't bring some of his fanatics along and sacrificed one of them? Trust was the only requirement, and the fanatics have immense trust in him. You gotta be if you're going to dedicate your life to a demonic cult and allow your tongue to be severed. It's not the first time his fanatics died for Nicky in a mission.

+ Butters

I can't believe he didn't — at the very least — receive a verbal lashing after that stunt he pulled in the middle of the book, risking everyone's lives. Then, at the end he got rewarded and Murphy is on the out? Noooooooo! WTF is the Christian God is thinking? The dude will barely last a second. The only reason Butters got one over on the bad guy was because of divine intervention so unless the Christian God plans to intervene every time Butters is in a fight, a big fat NO. Worst idea ever.

It was bad enough I was already upset with Butters in the beginning of the book for thinking Dresden was his bitch. HEROES ARE NOT YOUR BITCHES, BUTTERS! They have a life of their own and crap to deal with, especially the perpetually unfortunate Dresden as you very well know. Every time you meet Dresden, you are sewing his insides back inside. And of course, the answer to your question about what he's doing now is paying a debt. DID YOU FUCKING THINK COMING BACK FROM DEATH WAS FREE? No, he doesn't have time to play superhero for the city again!

Good gracious, if Butters wasn't Dresden's go-to doctor, I would have told the dude to fuck off. I half wanted him to die during that stunt. Anyway, I hope poetic justice will be served in future books now that Butters, in his new role as a hero instead of just as a sidekick, will experience the shit Dresden and others go through. Be happy for now with your new metaphorical giant penis, Butters. It's all shitstorm from thereon out.

+ everyone else

Damsels in distress ahoy. It's like no matter how strong the woman is, she still needs Dresden to rescue her. Can the damsels rescue themselves for once? At least Valmont was not as bad as what's-her-name in the last book who was so annoyingly helpless and gloomy to the point where I just wanted her to die as soon as she was introduced.

Ascher wasn't a damsel but I hated how at the end she was treated as one by Dresden. Woman made her life choices just like her partner, Binder, made his choices. I hate how Dresden is pissy towards Binder but not towards Ascher as if both were not similar in many ways. I wish Dresden's bleeding heart quit its sexist tendencies.

Poor Murphy. I love the idea that vanilla humans can be on the same playing field with the mighty supernatural. Damn Butters for taking that idea away from me. Anyway, I hope Murphy goes back to being a cop. I hate how she is unemployed and lacking a future other than being a sidekick for Dresden when he needs her. Yeah, that's a pathetic future. I also don't care for the potential romance between them for all the reasons a character listed in the middle of the book.

It was good to see Michael temporarily in action again. I always thought it was silly how he retired because of his injuries in a world where magic exists and it's possible to come back from death. Seriously, why are healing spells non-existent?

The Worldbuilding

The series wandered in Greek mythology, Hades and his underworld to be specific. It was odd that the reader got to meet Hades, another deity, but still not the Christian God. Instead we meet again one of his lackeys, Archangel Uriel, who made a less than impressive impression. So much for the idea that the enigmatic character knew what was he was doing. Anyway, I wish the series dial down the Christian elements or dial up the other supernatural elements.

Conclusion

I rate Skin Game 3-stars for I like it. I might rate it up a star for re-readability; we'll see. I was disappointed we didn't learn more about the Outsiders and the Black Council. It made only an inch of progress in the story arc. How long is this reckoning going to be delayed? Anyway, the book was enjoyable but it could have easily been better.

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REVIEW: Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It's book 4 and by far the weakest book of the series. I was never a fan of the writing because it was too dense for my taste, but I tolerated it. Not this time. The writing was too dry and tangential, and it was the yucky result of a meager plot.

+ the plot

The plot didn't hit the ground running till the last third of the book when Peter and Lesley went undercover to sniff out the perp. It was the only part of the book that held any excitement for me, and just barely. The rest of the book was swamped with boring, irrelevant world building shit.

+ the protagonist

The characters showed little growth, especially the star of the series. Peter as the bumbling magician apprentice amused me, but the humor wore thin after a couple of chapters. One of the things I liked about Peter was how he experimented and practiced his magic, but book 4 didn't have this. Peter became complacent, and I didn't like it.

I also didn't like how Peter was jealous of Lesley meeting someone else. What the fuck was that all about? He should have been happy she was moving on with her life. I didn't think Peter harbored romantic feelings for Lesley and that his relationship with her was just camaraderie. I guess I fooled myself into thinking this was one of those rare fictions where the male lead only sees his female buddy cop just as a friend. Genre fiction and TV have taught me better.

+ the antagonists

As for the bad guys, I'm very disappointed with the peripheral role the Faceless Man had after the book hinted so much about him. Case in point, he only appeared for one moment. The book may have been showing there were other magic-capable villains in the world beside the Faceless Man, the series' Big Bad, but these villains came off as mere distractions. They made the mystery feel like an intermission.

Conclusion

I rate Broken Homes 2-stars for it was okay. The writing was bad but I guess I should be happy it wasn't purple prose like in the Matthew Swift series. Regardless, the book broke my enthusiasm for this series. The plot twist at the end felt like a last ditch effort to make the book not frivolous. Nice try, but the book is still a glorified novella.

---

Book Description

My name is Peter Grant, and I am a keeper of the secret flame — whatever that is.

Truth be told, there's a lot I still don't know. My superior Nightingale, previously the last of England's wizardly governmental force, is trying to teach me proper schooling for a magician's apprentice. But even he doesn't have all the answers. Mostly I'm just a constable sworn to enforce the Queen’s Peace, with the occasional help from some unusual friends and a well-placed fire blast. With the new year, I have three main objectives, a) pass the detective exam so I can officially become a DC, b) work out what the hell my relationship with Lesley Mai, an old friend from the force and now fellow apprentice, is supposed to be, and most importantly, c) get through the year without destroying a major landmark.

Two out of three isn’t bad, right?

A mutilated body in Crawley means another murderer is on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil, who may either be a common serial killer or an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless Man — a man whose previous encounters I've barely survived. I've also got a case about a town planner going under a tube train and another about a stolen grimoire.

But then I get word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on a housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans, and inhabited by the truly desperate. If there's a connection to the Crawley case, I'll be entering some tricky waters of jurisdiction with the local river spirits. We have a prickly history, to say the least.

Just the typical day for a magician constable.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: The Bone Triangle by B.V. Larson

The Bone Triangle by B.V. Larson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite the attention-grabbing fight scene, the beginning was awful because the explanation of what had happened during book 1 made me vastly irritated with the hero. I struggled to remember why I ever liked Quentin.

+ the characters

Deep in debts, Quentin took little effort to find a job. It never occurred to him that if there was no paranormal job, e.g. monsters that needed slaying, then he should have looked at the normal ones, e.g. flipping burgers. The one job he did have, a job that provided him with residence and staved off homelessness, he did not take seriously. Worse, because of the job’s precarious nature, he foolishly risked his survival and almost got killed. He took for granted that if the antagonists genuinely wanted to kill him, they could have simply bombed the place to ashes with him in it as opposed to mind controlling a person (or an alien or an alien monster) to assassinate him.

Quentin seemed to have a Loser Complex. Now, I could tolerate the bum act, but the stupid act really pushed the limit. Every chapter in the beginning of the book presented at least one headdesk example of his stupidity. What kind of a person gets into a car with a stranger or walks into a dangerous place with hundreds in cash on hand? A dumbass, that is who.

Thankfully, the stupid act tapered off by the middle of the book, and I finally remembered why I liked Quentin. When shit needed to be done, no matter how perilous it was, Quentin got it done without hesitating to use the power that his magical artifacts provided him. He was not one of those clichéd Urban Fantasy protagonists who had issues with power. Granted, he suffered little to no side effects from using the artifacts, even multiple artifacts. One artifact was hazardous enough for the other people who used them. Nevertheless, the psychological risks of dependency and hubris still remained.

As for the secondary characters, Jacqueline did not annoy me as much as I thought she would because she was a spoiled rich girl. To my surprise, I actually ended up liking her. Hell, the fact that she was not a damsel in distress and had some sense to avoid danger, even though she was mischievous, put her several steps above the two women in book 1 who were Quentin’s love interests. Speaking of whom, I was glad the love triangle crap from book 1 was completely done away, with those two characters gone, and that the new romance with Jacqueline, if it can even be called that, was casual. No damsels in distress, no love triangle crap, no unnecessary drama; these things alone undoubtedly made book 2 better than book 1.

Detective McKesson, I still did not know what the deal was up with him. The “foe or friend” schtick got old; one moment, he’s a foe and maybe trying to kill Quentin, the next he’s a friend and Quentin rescues him and willfully puts his life in the detective’s hand. Goddamn it, make up your mind. The schtick I could tolerate with Rostok because Rostok was a crime lord and his motives were not that particularly mysterious because of who he was. Speaking of bad guys, I liked how they continued to show character development, especially with attempts to make them understandable and somewhat relatable. One of the things I love about the series is how it never cops out in making a single character, be they human or otherwise, flatly evil. Everyone had their reasons for doing what they did; a heinous act from one character’s POV is a desperate act for survival from another character’s POV.

+ the plot

Due to Quentin’s lack of priorities, the plot zigzagged between various conflicts. However, I did not mind because the pace was fast and the transition smooth which respectively kept me from being bored and befuddled. Every seemingly disparate conflict converged to a neat package at the end and with some twists thrown in to keep things from being dismally predictable. I loved how things were hardly ever as they seemed.

I loved that Quentin still kept his search for his identity a priority and that the loose end of his amnesia was finally resolved. The way things ended in book 1, I thought there was little chance the loose end would ever be resolved, at least not so incredibly soon in the series.

In Conclusion

I rate The Bone Triangle 3-stars for I liked it. If you are looking for a different Urban Fantasy, one where the ubiquitous vampires and werewolves are not the norm but instead aliens and crime lords, check out this series. The Unspeakable Things series is Roswell crossed with the Urban Fantasy genre — highly intriguing.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: The Devil You Know by K.H. Koehler

The Devil You Know by K.H. Koehler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book, but there were too many small issues to tolerate.

The Characters

+ the hero
The only noteworthy thing about Nick was that he was bi. Other than that, he was a stereotypical Urban Fantasy protagonist. He has a destiny he doesn’t want to face, a power he doesn’t practice to attain mastery, and a tendency to jump into trouble without preparation.

I had a hard time believing the character was an ex-cop, a psychic detective, and a prince of Hell. He frequently let the bad guys get the upper hand. He solved mysteries slowly and often late so shit was already happening, and he’s scrambling to save himself and others. He pissed off his allies and physically hurt his best friend when she warned him against Vivian. Worst of all, he allowed himself to be seduced by Vivian.

+ the romantic interest
The biggest issue I had with the book was Vivian. I didn’t like it when she was introduced as a damsel in distress, and I outright hated her when she developed into a femme fatale. She wasn’t entirely unpitiable, but 97% of the time, it was all “Nick, save me,” “Nick, fuck me,” “Nick teach me magic so that I may later use it for evil purposes in future books.” Nick wasn’t Vivian’s white knight; he was her stooge.

The Plot

+ the beginning
The beginning would have better off starting at chapter 3. Chapter 1 tried to parody a mystery novel; the first line was “Like a bad detective novel, it started with a woman.” But it quickly felt flat and became the cliche it was parodying. Go figure.

Worse, when Nick told Vivian about magic being real stuff, trying to do that hide-in-plain-sight, tongue-in-cheek thing, he came off as creepy and an incredibly obvious mouthpiece for info-dumping worldbuilding.

On another issue, Nick didn’t ping Vivian as part daemon immediately, yet it was told multiple times how he had an above-average radar of sensing the supernatural. Either Nick was deluding himself which I don’t think is the case or the story contradicted itself which I think is the case.

+ the middle
The middle dragged. Many seemingly unrelated things were happening, and I doubted their relevancy to the plot multiple times. I felt that Nick should strongly reconsider his priorities and focus on helping the people he could actually help instead of taking every case that entered his door.

The sex scene was unexpected and admittedly hot but nevertheless I didn’t like it because it was with Vivian. Any scene with Vivian had me going red. She was a like a fly I couldn’t waved away.

+ the ending
The ending was fast-paced but done in a clunky manner. I didn’t like how Malach and Nick buddied up like cops to confront the bad guys. It discredited the multiple tellings of the mutual, supposedly sustaining enmity that was established for the reader in the beginning of the story.

On the bright side, the conflict was nicely wrapped up, and I liked the foreshadowing of a war between Heaven and Hell where the lines between evil and good are super blurry. In spite of the incohesiveness, all the little plotlines that I thought that were irrelevant were finally given relevance.

In Conclusion

I rate The Devil You Know 2-stars for it was okay. Nick needed a cold slap to common sense, and Vivian needed to fuck off. The pacing was uneven, and the story had many unignorable inconsistencies. Still, the series has potential, and I do sincerely look forward to the sequel.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: The Wrong Goodbye by Chris F. Holm

The Wrong Goodbye by Chris F. Holm
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

CAUTION: long review, slight spoilers

Book 2 began ten months after the events of book 1. The effect of those events resonated throughout book 2 where the series' arc continued to hint at a nearing apocalypse.

Book 2 did a pretty good job rehashing the events of book 1 because I felt like I just read book 1. However that might annoy readers who literally did just read book 1.

The Characters

+ Sam
He continued to work that lone wolf, anti-hero persona. Intermittently throughout the story, Sam bugged me because he wasn't using his Collector power to its fullest extent and kept underestimating himself. Sam didn't show me he learned his lessons in book 1. I began to feel indifferent towards Sam by the end of book 2.

+ Lilith
She is Sam's handler. I really wished he took the help she offered, because it would have made things much easier. If he wouldn't fight using his full Collector power, then he should have deferred to Lilith.

Lilith was a compelling character; I wanted more scenes with her. Seeing her throw bodies would have been a true delight.

+ Giordano
I expected that Gio, the temporarily revived mob enforcer, was going to cause unnecessary and exasperating problems for Sam. I thought Gio was going to run away at the first opportunity and resist helping Sam throughout the story. Color me surprised and happy when the musclehead turned out to be actually helpful, truly loyal, and not totally dopey. For a mob enforcer, he was nice.

+ Theresa
The best of thing about Gio was his girlfriend, Theresa. "Lady Theresa" was a sassy, blind, seven feet tall, transsexual, bogus psychic living in Las Vegas. The romance between the couple was sweet... and tragic when I thought about it longer. I had mixed feelings about how very late Theresa was introduced in the story.

On one hand, it was a shame because she was an awesome character and she spiced up the story. If Theresa was there earlier, I believe the story would have been way less dull. Not to mention she would have more time with Gio before he returned to being dead-dead.

On the other hand, I was glad because the series doesn't hesitate maiming or killing off characters based on the casualties in book 1. I didn't want Theresa to get hurt at all.

+ Roscoe
The Texan oil-businessman was minor character but he stood out for me because the story was rather clumsy for making him a comic relief and really clumsy for using him to forward the plot. The guy didn't believe in the supernatural but then he suddenly did during his final appearance — just in time to help Sam find Gio. That scene disconnected me from the story for a few minutes.

+ the antagonists
Charon was convincingly scary. The revelation about him was epic, and the accompanying revelation about the Collectors was an eye-opener

The bad Collectors in book 2 had great characterization. They weren't as scary as Charon or that insane Collector in book 1 but they were powerful and definitely difficult to defeat. Like that insane Collector in book 1, the bad Collectors in book 2 showed the great power Collectors can wield. Collectors may be grunts in Hell's hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do serious damage.

When I compare these Collectors to Sam, Sam seems like an idiot for refusing to use his full power and gather some weapons. How can you fight bad guys if you don’t use everything at your disposal? Sam relied too heavily on his sidekicks and spontaneous sparks of wit.

The Plot

+ the beginning
It started off slow. The long flashback, while engaging, didn't help. Took a couple of chapters for things to set up and the core conflict to get going.

+ the middle
It had some slow moments. I thought things could stand to happen quicker.

The book doesn't do suspenseful scenes well. One such scene was when Sam sneaked into the abandoned hospital. Not to mention that the scene displayed his ineptitude in volumes for not bringing backup, i.e. Lilith.

To be fair, the book did partly compensate by how skillfully the horror element was crafted. The description of "Abby" seriously freaked me out.

+ the ending
Things ramped up once the story introduced Theresa. However, the car chase scene that followed was seriously contrived and served as another example of how poorly the book crafted suspense.

The worst part of the book was the last chapter. I didn't like how the bittersweet ending was done. Sam summarized his goodbye with Gio and Theresa. My HEA-loving side want to believe the couple will have their HEA but my cynical side say I'm just kidding myself. I didn't like the couple's uncertain ending which greatly promised tragedy. I thought the plot took a lazy way out by making the last chapter take place a few weeks after the previous chapter when the group had already parted ways. The last chapter left me raw with emotions and without a decent closure which I loathe.

Then I loathed some more when the ending unnecessary extended itself a few pages for a small cliffhanger.

In Conclusion

I rate book 2 of the series 2-stars for it was okay. I would have rounded it up to 3 stars from the preliminary 2.5 stars were it not for the ending and lack of character growth in the protagonist.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: Back from the Undead by D.D. Barant

Back from the Undead by D.D. Barant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

CAUTION: Long Review, Spoiler

With over 90,000 words, Back From The Undead was one of the best books in the Bloodhound Files series. As usual, BFTU had the series' signature twists and turns that sometime become too complex to comprehend. Fortunately, the twists and turns in this novel did not lose me. BFTU had one of the more linear plots in the series, something I was glad to get in this series.

Bonus to boot was BFTU's moderate amount of angst, compared to book 4 Better Off Undead which was angst heavy, and BFTU's high amount of humor, compared to the rest of the series. BFTU was truly a delight to read. I chuckled many times and it wasn't just because of the witty dialogue but also of the WTF scenes themselves. WTF-good, not WTF-bad.

We last left off from book 4 with Cassius confessing his love for Jace. Jace is insecure about the matter, and not necessarily because Cassius is her boss, or the fact that she yet refer to him by his first name David, or that she's a human and he's a vampire. It is mostly because her last three lovers betrayed her. What trust issues?

Anyway, there were a short scene between the two lovers but it was quickly interrupted by their job. Cassius disappeared on a case that took him away from Jace, and soon Jace was on a case herself. I felt their separation was a detriment to the story. Things didn't look good...

When it rains it pours

A direct line from the book, FYI.

Jace always get the most complicated case, an observation that was flat out acknowledged by her co-workers much to their headache. In BFTU, Jace gets the following problems:

1) Aristotle Stoker has asked Jace for her help. Aristotle Stoker is the villain Jace must capture/kill so she return to her home dimension. He is the villain who have eluded Jace for the last four books of the series. He is the villain the vampires and the lycanthropes fear like the bogeyman and Jack the Ripper and Hitler combined.

Is this a trap? 99.9% likely.

2) Stoker asked Jace to help him break up a human-trafficking ring... Except it's not humans being trafficked, it's vampires. It's not just vampires, it's vampire children. It's not just vampire children, it's vampire orphans who were cruelly abandoned by their parents in a world where vampire reproduction (the pregnant kind, not the bite-to-infect kind) is highly valued because not every pregnancy is successful and there's a magical price on the parents.

WTF? It's hard to believe since Stoker is a villain. Villains don't help people. It's impossible to believe because Stoker is a human supremacist/terrorist who thinks all the supernatural races should take a dirt bed.

Obviously, there's more to this trafficking ring than what he is saying. Honesty and villainy doesn't go hand in hand, especially in a sociopath like Stoker. Though if what Stoker says is true, Jace will need to stop the trafficking ring and capture Stoker.

3) Stoker asked Jace to come to Vancouver, Canada where the trafficking ring is located. In our dimension, America see Canada as "Our Great Neighbors to the North" where border security is laxed. In the other dimension, America see Canada as "Our Corrupt Neighbors to the North" where border security is stricter than the Korean DMZ of our world. Basically, Canada and Mexico switched stereotypes in Thropirelem (what Jace calls the alternate Earth). In Thropirelem, Vancouver is "the homicide capital of the world."

Jace will need to stop the trafficking ring and capture Stoker while avoiding the ubiquitous criminal.

4) Beside Stoker, Isamu is back too. He's the Yazuka lord of a vampire who promised to kill Jace in book 2. Looks like he might pull through on that promise... And somehow, he magically banned Jace from Heaven so she can never go there when she die.

As if Jace's life wasn't already in jeopardy, now her afterlife is too. Oh what joy. x_x

5) But hey. Why stop at two uber villains? How about throwing an ex who betrayed Jace and left her to die in book 2?

To be fair, Tanaka only did it because of the greater good. He ended up feeling so guilty that he swore to protect Jace by killing Isamu. However, Tanaka might need to aim at others to protect Jace because Isamu is small fry compared to the others...

6) There is a godlike character named Dagon in BFTU. Think Godzilla.

7) Let's also throw in one bored kitsune and two meddling deities for the heck of it.

This is not your usual trafficking ring case.

Raining Cats and Dogs

Meanwhile Jace is running out of gunpowder. She can make more if the global anti-gun spell wasn't such a bitch to deal with. Not only that, the spell started to affect Jace. The good news is that she get less nausea from being a dimensional displaced entity. The bad news is that her big advantage — her ability to splatter other supernaturals with her gun — is going away, leaving her largely defenseless.

The World-Building

I was happy at how the series went back to Oriental mythology for its world-building. At present, most Urban Fantasies relegate themselves to Western mythology. I love my angels and demons, my vampires and werewolves, but it can get stale sometime. Thus, I greatly appreciated it when BFTU incorporated kami, oni, and Yomi into its world.

Yomi, the Shinto hell, was one of my many favorite parts in BFTU.

A Christian Hell, for example, would be full of fire and torment, populated by leering, sadistic demons. Not a nice place to visit—or to have angry at you.

The Asian Hell, by contrast, is simply boring.

Now, that’s a very Eastern approach, and no doubt a room full of philosophers could spend an eternity arguing about which fate was worse: everlasting agony or never-ending dullness (or possibly being locked in a room full of arguing philosophers).

Jace didn't just visit "the homicide capital of the world [filled with vampires, lycanthropes, and golems]," she also visit Hell.

A Few Gripes, Some Mehs, and Many Spoilers

The cover-art didn't make much sense. Jace did visit a graveyard, but it was at 3 am not sunset. She did get attacked by lycanthropes but it was in the forest.

As said before, there was little of Cassius in BFTU. He didn't showed up again till the end, barring Jace's dreams. When Cassius did, the ending was a cliffhanger.

I was sad when Tanaka died because the story successfully redeemed the character. I wish things could have gone differently.

Another thing that could have gone differently was how the trafficking ring case was resolved. The vampire orphans were rescued from the trafficking ring, but they were not rescued from homelessness. At the end, they were returned to their street life on Vancouver and were still perpetually children. The only upside was that Isamu was killed so there's a little chance the evil plan will happen again. Very little because it would require the help of the god Yog-Sothoth who hardly meddle in humanoid affairs, this one time being one of those few exceptions. It was realistic the way things ended, but I thought it could have been happier, even at the risk of making the ending sickeningly sweet.

If readers love Jace's co-workers, they will be disappointed in BFTU. There were very few scenes of Gretchen. Charlie, along with Eisfanger, was with Jace on her case but Charlie didn't play a big role compared to the other books because Stoker took some of that spotlight. Surprisingly, I wasn't bothered by these changes.

Speaking of the devil, it was weird watching Stoker and Jace working together rather amicably. On one hand, I wanted to scream at Jace to shoot the guy already before he ran away again. On the other, I appreciated how they didn't antagonize one another, resulting in a low amount of angst. Angst wasn't something I wanted to get again after book 4.

Too bad Stoker was the series' villain, because he worked well with Jace. My biggest gripe about him was that I thought he needed more character development to make his change in BFTU believable.

Jace finally captured Stoker!!! To be accurate, Stoker surrendered himself. But who cares?! All that is left is Ahaseurus, the evil shaman dude who took Jace from her home dimension. It's because the shaman who dimensionally displace the person must be the shaman who dimensionally return her back. Except Ahaseurus has captured Cassius in another dimension at the cliffhanger of an ending. And just when I thought things were going right.

In Conclusion

Truthfully, BFTU was a 3.5. Many things did work for me, including the weird partnership between Stoker and Jace, the series' villain and heroine respectively. However, I wish the ending was more different. I wish the ending was a happier, more conclusive one. I really wish the ending wasn't a cliffhanger.

The reason why I rounded up my rating was because Jace shined greatly as an FBI profiler, an element that hasn't shown consistently in a big way throughout the series. Her profiling skill largely compensated the declining advantage of her gun in BFTU. Watching Jace out-scheming the other characters was a joy, especially at climax against Isamu. That and the unexpected high amount of humor the novel delivered is why I rate BFTU 4 stars for I really liked it.

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