Hello again everyone!
It's Thursday, and that means it's time to talk about books.
I spent an almost obscene amount of time reading. Really; I've been devouring books since pre-school, and during primary school our librarian actually forbade me from going into the section for higher-graders even though I'd read through all the other books already, which was when my parents signed me up for the public library. From there on out, my reading journey has gone through almost everything, from crime fighting to mushy romance, with occasional zombies tossed in the mix. I mean, the main reason why I treated myself to a Kobo e-reader was to be able to take more books with me to vacation!
And there are some authors I can never get enough of, one of them being Richelle Mead. Most of you will recognize her as the author of the world-famous Vampire Academy series (Dimitri Belikov fans, anyone?), and I started my 'acquaintance' with her there, too (for a review on the movie, check out next Tuesday's blog). And then I discovered she had written other series, among them about a succubus named Georgina Kincaid.
Now, before we start: I didn't really get the whole succubus/incubus deal beyond the obvious, which was that they suck the soul out of their victimes (male and female, respectively) through, ahem, intimate touches. I've caught some Lost Girl episodes on TV, but while interesting, I've never had much time to sit down and watch the show.
(Google Images)
So I was intrigued, and I have good experiences with Richelle from Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, although a little less with her Dark Swan series. I was hopeful.
And unfortunately, just a little bit disappointed.
Overall, as much as I like the six-book series idea, this one, to me, was stretched thin, and the main problem I had was Georgina sometimes ... well, making really predictable, really bad decisions. She's an intriguing character overall, but I didn't see as much growth in her as I have with VA's Rose or now Sydney and Adrian, for example. I found myself skipping ahead a lot, and just briefly overviewing some pages instead of actually reading through some of the books.
Succubus Blues started off really strong, and I enjoyed most of it throughout, I thought it set a very good tone for the rest of the series, especially with the introduction of Georgina, Seth, Hugh and the gang, and the whole hierarchy of Heaven and Hell. That our star-crossed lovers are actually way more complicated than that meant even better things to come.
Succubus on Top went downhill for me fast, because apart from introducing Bastien as a character, and showing Georgina at work as well as enhancing how she can't be with Seth physically, didn't make much sense. Yes, the red crystals were a problem, but it just didn't seem like something for a stand-alone book. More like, a small side-plot for the vampires to deal with while Georgina was off doing other things.
Succubus Dreams started picking things up again, but by this point I wasn't entirely convinced in the believability of a single Succubus taking on these supernatural things on her own, with finishing touches by either angels or demons, take your pick. Nyx being thrown into the loop was okay-ish, but I was surprised that supernatural beings, all of them, had to take so long to figure out that something was sucking Georgina's energy while she slept. You'd think being supernatural would make you concentrate on less mundane things. Also, why is the universe so focused on one worker from Hell all of a sudden?
Succubus Heat was interesting in the sense that we got to see a whole new level of Heaven/Hell espionage and politics, which was actually a whole lot more fun to read, but by this point I found it incredibly unbelievable and realistic that a lowly succubus was being targeted for all this and sent on random spying missions (where the demon actually figured it out, anyway). Entertaining, but not jaw-dropping, I should say. The one thing I did NOT expect was what happened when Jerome's minions became essentially human, because I never would have imagined Seth as a cheating type.
Succubus Shadows was the one book I really disliked, because it dragged, and Georgina was absent/in dream world for most of it, so her witty commentary was also lost to us. At this point, however, I was definitely beginning to suspect that Seth was more connected to her than anyone realized.
Succubus Revealed was as satisfying as one could expect after a series that struck me as a little anti-climactic a lot of the time. I was glad to be proven right on the connection between our two protagonists, and most loose ends were tied off neatly, but generally speaking, this series didn't hold me in its clutches as much as VA did. Half the time I was able to predict fairly well what Georgina would do (or wouldn't, in some cases), and no one actually ever got to the point about the targeting. The two contracts made sense, but the more Hell tried to intervene, the more they messed it all up ... I just don't know.
All the books were entertaining in their own right, but it just didn't resonate to me as a whole, and three in a series instead of six would have sufficed, in my opinion. I think part of the reason was that there honestly didn't seem to be enough material for six books, and some things were strung out to the breaking point. Also, is it bad that I really liked Jerome most of all? Any demon who can look like John Cusack makes my day.
(Google Images)
So overall, I would give this series 3 out of 5 stars, because it WAS readable, just lacking at some points.
What did you think?
Have a good one x
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