A Sky Beyond the Storm
by Sabaa Tahir
The long-imprisoned jinn are finally free, bringing death and destruction to every village and city they encounter. But for the Nightbringer, this is only the beginning. Laia of Serra, along with the Blood Shrike, are now determined to prevent the coming apocalypse and stop the Nightbringer before he kills even more people. Yet something doesn’t feel right, though they’ve yet to figure out why. Meanwhile, Elias has lost himself, only thinking of himself as the Soul Catcher and doing his duty to pass along the spirits he comes across. But the turmoil of the world has managed to penetrate into the isolated woods he now calls home. As less and less spirits make it to the Waiting Place, he will have to remember who he once was and join his friends to stop the end of the world.
That’s it? That’s the end?
I want to make it clear that I’m okay with where the plot ends up going. I’m fine with what happens and, overall, I’m okay with where all the characters end up when things are said and done. My issues are mostly structural, I guess. And that’s because most of what happens here feels like filler. This book somehow comes off like it’s suffering from second book syndrome even though it’s the final entry in this story. And for a series that I’ve been following for six years, that’s...not great.
There’s really a whole lot of nothing going on in this story. Or, there’s things happening, but not with the characters around to see them. Elias spends most of his time acting as Soul Catcher and pretending he’s not Elias, a decision I absolutely despised, and a choice that drags the whole book down. A good portion of his chapters feel like wasted time and pages. Helene’s chapters are about the same. She’s with her army, planning for most of the book instead of doing something. And while Laia is definitely the most dynamic of the three main characters, her chapters are also kind of boring. She spends most of her time traveling from place to place, yet it never really feels like she’s doing much of anything. Unless she’s getting hit with a heavy dose of dumb bitch syndrome to get her where the plot needs her to be. If you’ve read this book you know the exact moment I’m talking about.
A serious problem I have is with the way the author decided to write this book, especially when it comes to things like time and pacing. The events that occur in this story happen over several months, but it doesn’t ever feel that way because the author just has the characters casually mention how long it’s been in a single sentence. Laia will say that it took her two weeks to travel somewhere, or Elias will have a quick thought that two months have passed. This gives the book such a disjointed and rushed feeling to me. There’s A LOT going on in the world, but since I’m not experiencing this time passing along with the characters, all these events seem instantaneous and really do a number on the pacing of the story.
Keris’ defeat is, predictably, underwhelming. I saw this problem coming from a mile away, and I even remember mentioning it in one of my past reviews for this series. The author built her up too much and made her too powerful and perfect to ever, ever create a situation where taking her down would feel satisfying. And a character shows up (again) at the very end of the story even though everyone thought this character was dead. And...how many times is this ploy going to be used? Because this is the second time, with the same character.
Like I said before, this is not the worst finale book I’ve read, but it’s definitely not the best either.
