#rage review

[rosecorcoranwrites]

It, like, doesn't make any sense? But we'll get to that.

Today, I rant and rage about Margaret Atwood's "masterpiece" of "feminist literature". Get ready for nonsensical world building, kicked dogs, and women's apparent inability to do math.

Long story short, if you like Handmaid's Tale, you might want to skip this one.

[john-and-so-on]

I just saw this movie called The Fear of Darkness. Spoilers:

It’s another one of those movies that pulls the whole “nothing you saw for the entire movie was real” twists. Except for a very few cases, I HATE those endings! Like, what is the point! If nothing that happened matters, then funnily enough suddenly the movie doesn’t matter! Strange how that happens huh?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, once the main character comes out of her imaginary D.I.D. world (which I’m sure exists btw.)  where the darkness was after her, her real psychologist calls her “Skye” and the girl sees something in the mirror and says “I’m not Skye.” This after we were shown her letting go of the only personality we know of! Then she just walks out! Of a “medium security” mental institution! Are we to assume she just killed the doctor and security? Then a truck pulls up, the driver’s door opens, she gets in, closes it, and gets back out and walks away.

The End

I don’t care for that.

It didn’t make sense, it didn’t explain “who” she is, it didn’t say whether the darkness was real or not. It’s like one of those “it’s not real, or is it?”

Aside from the last part, it’s a lot like what the game Little Hope did, except I think I hate this more.

-Manager

[gamecache]

[decodetheunwritten]

Rage Review: Ether on PS4

I played Ether on PS4 for ten minutes before getting so frustrated I had to delete the game from my hard drive. Total waste of time.

First of all, it wouldn’t let me switch to invert aim. In a first-person game. It wasn’t even an option. This is indefensible. Even if you prefer the player use the controls in a certain way, they should still get the option to switch. I mean why the hell not?

Secondly, the subtitles were about a full ten seconds ahead of the dialogue. So I was reading what the disembodied voice was about to say while trying to listen to what it was currently saying. Always disorienting, always annoying.

Thirdly, once a tiny amount of gameplay started, it told me to hold L1 in order to identify objects of interest but didn’t give me any objects of interest to identify in order to test out the mechanic. WTF? Why tell me to try something new out but not give me the means to do so?

Fourthly, the sprint is maybe half a mile an hour faster than the normal walking speed. Is my character in leg shackles? I don’t want to play this stupid game in slow motion.

Fifthly, the games asks me to sign in and then brings up a keyboard with no indication whatsoever which letter is currently highlighted, so I had to go through by trial and error in order to type in my fucking name. Seriously?

Sixthly, the game asks me to pick up a keycard, but when I select the keycard I only get the option to spin it around and look at the poorly rendered pixelated texture. The only thing I could do was set the card back down. Well fuck you too I guess.

Seventhly, I walk to the door they told me to walk to but in order to open it I need the card they wouldn’t let me pick up. This was the point when I closed the game and deleted it. Fuck that noise.

In short, Ether is a stupid waste of badly programmed time. Don’t play it. I know it’s free, but unless you have absolutely nothing going on in your life at this moment, such as breathing or staring at the wall, it is a senseless waste of your time.

[strongpossibility]

Rage AKA Tokarev Review by Sean Strong - ScreenRelish

Screen Relish reviews Nicolas Cage revenger Rage AKA Tokarev

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Soulbound

Soulbound is the first book in the series The Legend of Tril by Heather Brewer. I'll admit, I requested this book because not only did the blurb (that I had access to at the time, which was nearly a year ago...) sound pretty cool, the cover was bafflingly interesting.

I mean- there's chain mail over her face (do you have any idea how badly chain mail and hair go together?), random ribbon on her bicep, and she's carrying a katana. How could I not request this book?

So, in the beginning of the book we're presented with what appears to be a fairly generic, quasi-medieval, fantasy world. No magic, but there's this bad guy named King Derrek who has monster minions called graplars. They talk about harvest festivals, a market, making and dying their own clothes, torches and candles are used, all buildings seem to be of stone or wood, medicine is all herbal, and they use parchment.

The human people are at war with this Derrek and his graplars. However, they seem to be there only for murder and mayhem, which is why I'm so puzzled by the idea of WAR. You don't go to war on monsters that murder randomly. You just defend yourself.

Then there's this little detail of Japanese flavor text. There are occasional Japanese place and family names sprinkled around, and there is a class of person who uses a katana.

Our main character is Kaya, which is the same name as the MC in a terrible story I wrote in my teen years. In fact, many of the main characters have the same personality traits and similar names to the people in the terrible story I wrote more than 15 years ago. Some plot points also hold some similarities, which I feel is more the result of trying too hard to make a spunky, capable female main character than anything else. Here's a hint to the author and to teenage me: don't make a strong female character. Make a strong character. Gender is irrelevant to the strength of character.

As further backstory, Kaya's parents are both Barrons- fighter-types with a supernatural ability to withstand pain. Kaya is a Healer- someone who can heal the wounds of a Barron she is Bound to with only a touch. When Healers and Barrons are born at the same time, they are Soulbound- soulmates meant to spend their lives together. It's absolutely forbidden, on pain of death, for two Healers or two Barrons to marry.

This is never explained. I went through the whole book wondering if it was a breeding thing, or a magic thing, or just a controlling-government thing, and never got an answer.

So Kaya and her parents are in hiding in a sleepy little town. Her best friend Avery is a girl who she kinda thinks is weird for being as into boys as she is. During a harvest festival, Avery gets killed by one of the graplars OUT OF NOWHERE, and suddenly Kaya is summoned to go be a Healer for real!

Her parents are held hostage to keep her behaving herself, and Kaya is shipped off to a place called the Shadow Academy, which sounds so sci-fi that I'm really not sure what's going on any more. As if to emphasize that there is no rhyme or reason to the worldbulding, Kaya's internal voice sounds like a valley girl, she complains about things being sexist, being shoehorned into the role of damsel in distress, and wears makeup.

...They don't even have electricity, and she's angry about not being taught math and science?

She also swears. A lot. But in cutesy ways. Rather than use the actual vulgar words that exist, the author has made up her own. Fak in place of fuck, dek instead of dick, and the entirely baffling terked off instead of ticked off. Yeah, that's right. She didn't make an entirely unclever reference to pissed off (pekked off? possed off?), she just censored the phrase ticked off instead. And then all the teenage characters used them liberally. I don't remember a single page that went by without at least one of those replacement words being used. Fak this, fak that, I told him to fak himself, what the fak? fakking stupid. In general, I disagree with the statement that vulgarity is the sign of a lack of creativity and poor vocabulary, but in this case, it seems true.

In the summons, Kaya is informed that her Soulbound Barron is dead, and they're going to Bind her to another Barron. Also, Healers are super, super rare so she has no other options.

Her guard fails to meet Kaya when her ride drops her off (And we never get to hear what said ride is- a car? Carriage? Shuttlecraft?), leaving Kaya to wander through jungle-like woods in an effort to make her own way to the academy. She's attacked by a graplar, because they have supernatural Healer-sensing powers due to years of killing them off so the Barrons can't get magic healing. But never fear! Kaya is rescued by a mysterious, white-haired, and incredibly handsome boy named Darius! He kills the graplar, and seems to expect Kaya to know him, and is disappointed when she doesn't. But Kaya doesn't care! She has anger and resentment and rebellion to be doing!

This is what passes for foreshadowing.

So, when she gets to the school, it turns out that the guard who was supposed to meet her is a kinda bitchy girl named Maddox, who sneeringly calls Kaya "princess." But don't worry! After they both appreciate a cute boy, they're now best of friends, and the nickname is endearing!

Said cute boy is the new Barron that Kaya will be Bound to (but not Soulbound, because her Barron is DEAD DEAD DEAD, guys!). The next day he essentially gets tortured so Kaya can heal him, and they're Bonded, yay!

By the next day, they're now a couple, after nothing more than her thinking that he's super hot and kinda nice, too.

He's not really nice. He's pretty condescending, actually. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. You see, despite the claims that the incredibly rare healers are placed on pedestals and treated better than everyone, there is some serious Healer oppression going on.

-Healers are in no way allowed to learn how to defend themselves. -If a group of Barrons are talking, they all have to agree to let a Healer join in before a Healer is allowed to talk. -Healers are subject to strict behavior rules, including curfews. -They are called insignificant. -Barrons are constantly bullying Healers who aren't Bound to them.

All those? Totally fantastic reasons for the people who are the only ones standing between you and death to keep on protecting you. Being helpless and bullied totally makes me want to help the bullies not get killed...

As a minor detail, the male teachers are called "Mr Name" and the female teachers are "Instructor Name." No explanation has been forthcoming.

In any case, that mysterious, beautiful, white-haired boy from the forest is the expert katana instructor. He teaches all the Barrons, despite not at all being a Barron himself. He's totally not. Really. This is entirely not a case of the author doth protest too much. And this entirely-not-at-all-a-Barron guy is cranky around our precious baby Kaya, and is horribly mean to her.

For the record, assigning a student who breaks the rules with extra gardening duties is now mean. (But we learned this from Snape.)

And, because he is so dreadfully mean, she decides to confront him. After curfew. At his cottage. Unchaperoned.

While she's confronting him, a pair of graplars show up! Instead of calling for help or anything sensible, the TOTALLY NOT IN ANY WAY A BARRON guy hands his only sword- excuse me, katana- over to Kaya and tells her to behead or distract one of them while he takes care of the other. Despite her lack of training, she kills a monster that is solely built to chomp. After getting the obligatory injury that requires her to partially disrobe so the guy who is mean to her can fix it. Oh, and BTW, she finds out he has a mark that shows HE IS A BARRON AFTER ALL. GASPSHOCK.

Anyway, she talks this mysteriously not a Barron guy into giving her combat training because she is literally the only person in over a hundred years to think that maybe healers should have a chance to defend themselves. He agrees, because reasons. In a week she's good enough with a katana to fight him to a draw while extremely pissed off.

Also she can beat Trayton (that's the dude she was Bound to a week ago who she was immediately gaga over because he's hot) when  mysteriously not a Barron decides that it would be a great idea to have them spar. Trayton, the rule-abiding, who will instantly report anyone for breaking the rules except his old friend Mel-something who is always flirting with him, even though she's a Barron, too.

Kaya and Darius go on a mission that is basically just him saying "this is my angst!" They bond. Kinda.

The main character is exceptionally ignorant of empathy. Other people have experienced loss and pain? Well, she doesn't like them, so whatever.

Kaya accompanies a bunch of Barrons out on a mission to take out some graplars. The fight almost goes poorly, and Trayton recognizes her fighting style from their previous sparring session (because he only heard her voice before, since she was masked. and despite them being a couple, he doesn't recognize her voice because they've only known each other for a week), and takes off her mask and is shocked, SHOCKED, I say, that his healer would dare risk herself in combat. That's what Healer-less Barrons are for!

As an aside: the spare Barrons are considered guards, and are also refused any sort of combat training, as their instincts are supposed to be good enough, and it's presumed that combat training would allow them to run away if they wanted. SO. There are a ton of extra, useless mouths to feed. At least it's not just Healers who don't get to learn how to fight? These people must be dying to lose their war.

The book ends with the villain of the piece letting a ton of graplars into the academy and a huge fight ensuing. There's an odd bit that I actually feel like I need to quote in order to stress the awkwardness of the scene. Keep in mind, this is only a week since she's begun lessons in swordplay in order to fight murderous monsters.

     Thinking fast, I brought my blade up just in time. It bit down on the metal just inches from my face. I thought that it might back off then, because the katana was cutting into the corners of its mouth, blood dribbling down the blade, down my arm and onto my chest. But the beast narrowed its eyes even more and pushed toward me, forcing the blade deeper into its own flesh. It didn't care. It only care that its actions would bring its hungry jaws closer to me.      My heart was racing. What more could I do to stop the beast? What more could I do to save my own life?      I pushed hard with the katana, sinking the edge of the blade in deeper still, hoping to lop off its head, but I couldn't get enough leverage on the blade, and drool was dripping from its jaw in anticipation of its next meal. Then, over the Graplar's shoulder, I spied the Barron who I had saved. The tip of the katana's sharp blade was sticking out of the side of its hungry mouth, and with precision, the Barron grabbed the tip with his hand. The metal sliced slowly into his flesh and blood poured out of him. He barely winced, and I was reminded of my parents and their enormous resistance to pain. He pulled the blade back, deeper into the beast's mouth. The katana cut through the Graplar's head cleanly, and with a gurgle, its giant body stumbled to the left before collapsing lifeless on the ground.

So, here's the thing. People who know about katanas know that they are sharp on only one side of the blade, which means that it should have been possible for the Barron to hold his hand in such a way that would avoid the blade doing much damage to his all-important tendons. Also, if the blade was sharp enough to cut through the graplar's head- HEAD- it would not cut slowly into his hand, if it cut his hand at all. It would slice through that mother like a bitch.

Oh, and they carry their katanas on their backs. Not a big deal, just another WTF moment.

And, in the midst of combat, people that no one has named or cared about dying all around them, Kaya demands an apology from Darius for the way he pitted Trayton against Kaya during one of their private training sessions.

And, after Trayton almost dies (Kaya's Bound superpowers failing to heal him), and Darius almost dies (Kaya's Soulbound superpowers totally healing him), the book ends in a moment of everyone going WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

And by everyone, I mean readers included.

As a bonus, here's a quote about Mel-something: "Her smile struck me as somewhat sadistic and absolutely surreptitious." Why not just go for "certainly" and keep the alliteration going?

And for a secondary bonus, let's guess who the traitor was! It's not like we have many major characters to choose from...

Was it: Kaya, the voice of the book? Trayton, the boy who follows all the rules even when it breaks his heart? Darius, who is Kaya's Soulbound? Maddox, Kaya's best friend who was a jerk for a whole day? Melanie, the Barron who wants to get with Trayton? Edmond, the guard who replaced Melanie? Raden, a Barron who is only there to be another named Barron? Headmaster Quill, who is SUPER into protocol and loyalty? Mr Groff, a teacher who called Healers insignificant? Instructor Harnett, who teaches the only class Kaya likes? Instructor Baak, who is crazy, yells at people for no reason, hates Kaya with a violent passion, and apparently listens at doors so she can catch people saying nice things about Healers and yell at them?

...it's not like that's a TOTALLY OBVIOUS CHOICE or anything.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Santa Fe Fandango

The LibraryThing Early Reader description for Santa Fe Fandango by Elinor Groves is as follows:

Matti Glover is thrilled to learn that hot Hollywood heart-throb Antonio Reed is not only filming a movie in Santa Fe, but staying in the exclusive complex where she's house-sitting. She rescues him from a busload of teenage girls, and grateful and intrigued, he asks her for a date. Matti's caught up in a Cinderella dream come true—until midnight hits and it's pumpkin time. Any reader who ever cherished a secret crush on Robert, Justin, or Orlando will enjoy this romp through the fan's ultimate fantasy.

Okay, granted, I requested a book that sounds like a silly young adult romance, but I'll admit it: I absolutely adored Meg Cabot's Teen Idol. I was hoping for a fluffy bit of ridiculous fun. I mean, even the cover looks appropriate for a twee little novel.

Matti, an artist, is house-sitting for a friend of hers in an exclusive Santa Fe community. Both she and her extremely flaming BFF (so Hollywood-stereotypical that it made me want to barf- I don't know a single gay man who actually acts like that in real life) are obsessed with an up-and-coming actor named Antonio Reed.

When I say obsessed, I mean that she has cardboard stand-ups, posters, all two of his movies that she's watched more than twenty times, and uses his image as a reference in countless drawings. She's filled notebooks and canvases with his picture. She gets flustered and self-conscious thinking about him. She's so goofy over this heartthrob that I honestly thought this girl was 17 and doing a family friend a favor, but noooo. She's in her late twenties. My age.

...and then it turns out that Antonio is there. In Santa Fe. Staying in the same community. Matti sees him walking around, and has the presence of mind- despite her twitterpated response- to warn Antonio about an incoming horde of teenage girls. When she runs into him again at the only restaurant this place apparently has where movie stars are willing to eat, he asks her out, charmed by her lack of crazy-fan-antics.

In the meantime, Matti is constantly freaking out over how to not have frantic fan freakouts, because she (rightly) thinks that he doesn't want to be romantically involved with someone who is only interested in the characters he played and his extremely attractive face.

And that, folks, is the entire conflict of the book. She tries to hide it, his bodyguard tries to convince him that she's one of the nutcases, she gradually becomes less of a crazy fan, they fall in love and WHOA HOLY COW SURPRISE EXPLICIT SEX SCENE.

Turns out, not a young adult novel. This is an actual romance novel, fulfilling the expectations of the genre.

And then the book just... ends. He finds out she's a crazy fan, decides he doesn't care, and they live happily ever after. Within the last 5% of the book. Least interesting climax of all time.

However, as I read, I began to put pieces together. The end clinched it. I was reading real person fanfiction. One of the fanfics written by a girl obsessed with an actor to the point that she writes fiction about the life of a real human being to give greater life to her fantasies about a hot guy. A piece of fiction meant to give the obsessed girl hope that the hot actor will fall in love with her despite the creepy things she's written about him.

And the guy in question? Orlando Bloom. The character's name is "Antonio Reed." They are both English, the physical description matches, and their first big movie role was that of the hot, young, supporting character in an ensemble cast (Legolas in Lord of the Rings vs Will Scarlet in Robin Hood). That single role thrust the previously unknown young actor into a whirlwind of interviews and paparazzi. The more I read, the more obvious it became. The whole thing reads like the author's fantasy about herself and Orlando Bloom. It was honestly a little sad by the time I finished.

If you can read it as just a light fantasy romance novel, it's not terrible. It's definitely not good, as the poor pacing clearly shows, but it could be worse. But if you're a person who keeps accidentally finding the trainwrecks of fanfiction about celebrities... eesh.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Switched

(Post from January 2012)

I'm not going to lie. I am absolutely fascinated by the idea of changelings (No, I'm not talking about the Angelina Jolie movie. I think. I haven't seen it, because her face creeps me out.), so when I saw the description of Switched by Amanda Hocking on LibraryThing's Early Reviewers, I jumped at the chance to win an advance reader.

The book is being published by St. Martin's Griffin in trade paperback next week, but it was originally self-published as an e-book. E-book self-publishing is a brilliant plan (with caveats like mostly illiterate idiots), a great way for aspiring authors to test the waters of publishing, and in Ms Hocking's case, she hit the jackpot- e-books successful enough to warrant the attention of a major publisher. Thing is, it wasn't popular because it's a great story- it's popular because it cashes in on the Twilight-kindled fad of supernatural, fawning hotties.

It starts out interesting enough. Six-year-old Wendy has a temper tantrum at her birthday party. Her mother got a chocolate cake, and Wendy hates chocolate. This is the breaking point for her mother, who goes insane, insisting that Wendy isn't her real daughter and killed her son. She attacks Wendy with the cake knife, leaving the little girl in need of 60 stitches. Her older brother intervenes and saves her life, and her mother is locked away in a psych ward.

Then we skip forward eleven years. Wendy is sullen, unfriendly, and ungrateful for the constant affection and support showered on her by her brother Matt and her aunt. They've moved repeatedly, putting Wendy in school after school as she continues to get kicked out due to her behavior. She has next to no impulse control, a bad temper, and is generally anti-social. Recently she's discovered that if she thinks very hard at a person, they will do what she wants. In her new school, a last-ditch effort at getting her graduated, she uses this power to avoid getting detentions for falling asleep in class. How noble.

After using her powers on a teacher, she realizes another new student- Finn-  has been staring at her. A lot. She handles her outrage predictably, and tells him off but good. He agrees to stop staring, asks that she stop using her powers on people, and then the subsequent lack of staring bothers her. Wendy doesn't make sense, and most people excuse this as "being a teenage girl." Granted, I no longer socialize with a great many teenagers, but even when I did (and when I was a teenage girl), that's... stupid. You don't have the right to be upset at someone for doing exactly what you told them to do, particularly when the activity ceased was one that the requester felt was creepy.

So, for reasons utterly baffling to me, Wendy opts to attend a school dance. There, she sees Finn, who dances with her, and then gets awkward and weird, rebuffing her painful attempts at flirting, which enrages her. She uses her power to convince a poor, hapless boy to drive her home, where her protective and loving older brother gets mad at a boy who would fluster her so much. (Seriously, her older brother is the bomb. He cares about his family, he's a hard worker, and he's willing to put most of his life aside to help his sister get through her issues with their mother trying to kill her.)

Instead of doing the smart thing and staying away, Finn gets Wendy to let him into her room while she sits up there and mopes. Then he tells her that her family is not her family, and that she's a troll.

Oh, sorry. Not a troll doll, a troll.

But wait!

That's not right, either. They call themselves Trylle, and are sexy beasts. The author doesn't just take the part of the Wikipedia entry that says trolls can look like humans to heart, she runs away with it, cackling madly. I can handle good-looking vampires (they have to attract prey somehow), and what's Glamour for, if not to make the Fey Folk beautiful? Angels and Demons can be attractive, I suppose, based on folklore. But even looking like humans doesn't mean that they should all automatically be gorgeous. Oh, no. I mean foxy, as that's the word the author uses time and time again.

From Ms Hocking's Goodreads profile: "I also wrote the Trylle Trilogy, which is a paranormal romance without vampires, shifters, mermaids, fae, angels, dragons, ghosts, or ninjas."

Psst, honey. If they're all supernaturally beautiful and all have the same magical powers, it doesn't matter if you call them trolls instead of whatever else has sold well strikes your fancy.

Aaaaaaanyway.

Having talked his way into the bedroom of a teenage girl using the ol' "You're special, not like everyone else," line, Finn (who admits to being 20 years old) explains that her power of getting everything she wants is more proof that she's a troll. So are her picky eating habits! Also her curly hair that tangles even more than regular curly hair! And some trolls (but not her) have skin of a shade that makes them look permanently seasick! Except they are otherwise gorgeous.

And with all that proof, he wants her to come with him to meet her biological mother and live with the Trylle. Wendy initially refuses, because she doesn't want to disappoint her brother and aunt (though this is not the first time she says she doesn't want to hurt them, this is the first time she tries to do something about it). After an attack of plot-moving proportions, Wendy decides to abandon the family that loves her and go with this stranger who tells her crazy things.

My readers who were once fantasy-loving teenage girls have probably figured out where this is going.

Wendy is not just any Trylle changeling.

She's the daughter of the queen, and heir to the massive fortune and tiny kingdom.

And it would seem to be quite the fortune, as the lands and palace are expansive and expensive, as we are frequently reminded. Note to Ms Hocking: "expensive" and "designer" and "high-fashion" do not actually tell your readers what something looks like.

And all this cash? Comes from changelings. That's right, the Trylle are basically massive con artists, placing their cuckoos in the nest eggs of wealthy families, who raise, educate, and leave giant inheritances to children, all unsuspecting. One would think that the governments and revenue services of the various countries that house these troll children would eventually catch on to the fact that all this money keeps going to a tiny place in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota along with these children. There's this thing where governments like money, and that seems like a pattern they wouldn't just miss.

Wendy's bio-mother is cold and demanding, insisting that, since Wendy is a princess, she should behave like one, despite being a sullen teenager who had someone try to kill her as a child. A debutante ball is scheduled for a few weeks later, and a huge chunk of the book is then Wendy trying to learn how to be a princess and whining incessantly about it. The boy whose place in human society she replaced lives in the house, and she alternates between flirting with him and Finn, complaining about how Finn doesn't act in ways she approves of, and dissing the entire society that she gave up a loving family for.

She also snoops in a locked room, and finds a painting of herself, dressed in an elegant silver gown, a look of abject horror on her face, injured, and surrounded by broken glass. Turns out the queen has a talent for painting the future. Wendy dwells on this painting a lot in the following weeks, but apparently not enough.

At one point she and Rhys (human half of the changeling swap) sit down to watch Lord of the Rings, and he tells her that it's so much funnier when you know real trolls. Really? Because there's only a cave troll in the first one,  a few in the siege of Gondor, and a pair open the Black Gate. In the extended edition you get a quick glimpse of the trolls that turned to stone in The Hobbit, but the only time anything is ever called a troll in those movies is the cave troll.  Boromir's resigned, "They have a cave troll," and then fighting. I hatehatehate it when an author tries to make a cutesy nerd reference while knowing nothing at all about what they just said.

And does anyone else find it creepy that she's flirting with the biological brother of the man she thought was her brother for 17 years? Because EW.

Sometime in all this entirely boring talk about preparation for her ball, Wendy realizes she's in love with Finn, and badgers a confession of the same feeling from him because he promised to never lie to her. But! Oh, dear heavens! A princess isn't allowed to be "caught" with a Tracker or a human! She'll be banished from the Trylle kingdom!

Right then, the only things she likes about the Trylle kingdom are Finn, Rhys, and the abundant money. Who cares if she gets banished? So she goes back to live with her loving family? Sounds dreadful!

But, because he loves her and he believes it would be best for the kingdom if she inherited, Finn chooses to leave. Sound familiar? Wendy falls into a stupor, needing to be physically guided through the morning of the ball, completely non-functional without her man. Also familiar?

During the designing and fitting of her ball gown, Wendy somehow entirely fails to notice that it's the exact dress in the prophetic painting. At least her mother has the excuse of not having seen the dress at all during the process.

There is an awkward ball, interrupted by the second convenient attack of plot movement! We're never given an actual explanation for why these people want to kidnap Wendy, but I assume it's because of her princess-ness and probably super-powers that have yet to manifest. Nameless people die! Rhys is injured trying to protect Wendy! Newfound friends fight! Finn reappears to romantically save Wendy because she can't protect herself with her magical powers of persuading people to do what she wants! Finn fights off the bad guys, Wendy goes... Oh, crap. I've finally realized this is the scene from the painting, and Finn and the bad guy go over the side of a cliff!

Don't worry, Finn gets rescued by the guy who seems to only exist to be telekinetic. He's rewarded with a chaste night of cuddling, and then the queen sends him away For Good. Enraged by the loss of The One True Love of Her Life, Wendy decides that now is the time to run away. She uses her persuasion on Rhys and they motorcycle away.

But they can't use the gate, because the guards are on high alert after the attack. Rhys remembers a hole in the fence that other humans had used to run away, and they go out that way, noting that the hole had been enlarged. They assume that this was how the bad guys got in, and go on their merry way, back to the human family. It never occurs to them to mention this breech to anyone who might want to do something about it, and Rhys never recalled it before, despite there being a threat of attack from the moment Wendy arrived. The end.

I gather there are two more books in this series. I'm not going to read them. Why would I? Given the way these things work, chances are that there will be at least one more romantic interest introduced, endless pages of adolescent angst will ensue, and it will end happily ever after. I could instead spend my time on books that are well written. Or on writing.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Facebook is a better use of my time.