Into the Dark Lands

Review of entire series posted under [b:Chains of Darkness, Chains of Light 437678 Chains of Darkness, Chains of Light (The Sundered, Book 4) Michelle Sagara West http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174768950s/437678.jpg 426541].

Why do all the books that I read that have a strong basis of romance in them also have a controlling, possessive and domineering guy as the love interest?

To be fair, I did have some idea what I was getting into with this book. After all, the ‘hero' of the story is also the villain in a way. The hero and heroine are on opposite sides of a long, bloody war and they find themselves falling in love with each other. I love stories that make enemies (or even people that dislike each other) work together and/or form a borderline unwilling friendship. So, take it up to the next level with romance, sounds great. Right?

So I thought. Okay, first, I knew about the almost rape. I won't say 'attempted' rape, because the guy stopped himself. I knew about that and, while the thought didn't make me happy, I figured I could deal with it. Turns out I could. I think that's partially because of the distant writing style (more about that later) but also because it was so stupid. So, Stefanos can sense emotions. Erin was exuding fear. Somehow, I think it acts like a drug to him - makes him high and he has a hard time controlling himself then. Not an excuse, but disturbingly understandable. My issue comes with Erin. From the moment she knew who was at her door, she was afraid. From the explanations I understood, it was the first time she was afraid. So, why was she afraid before he had even do anything to her? It makes no sense - unless the reader is meant to think she was afraid because she'd finally admitted to herself that she was in love with him. In that case, it might be even stupider than I thought.

I made it to this point in the story, having some issue with Erin - but then the fun really started. Stefanos and Erin have mutually consummated their love. Great, right? I mean, they didn't drag it out endlessly. Only now, Stefanos - who has never called her Erin, only her title (Sarellion, or something like that) - is basically told by Erin that she doesn't want to be called by a title by him anymore. She wants him to call her by her name. Only he won't because ‘Erin of Elliath' is his enemy. So, what does he do? He re-names her. From then on she is Sara. Even though she told him it was merely a diminutive, he re-names her. From then on, she is referred to as Sara. By everyone that uses her name. Her lover. The narrative of the book. Hell, she even calls herself Sara. In fact, there is a point late in the book that she thinks of herself as Erin 'for the first time in many years' - or something like that. I'm sorry. I've come across guys that are way too jealous and possessive for me (like every time I try to read a romance) but this hits a new all-time low for me.

I think this book covers something like twenty-four years. First of all, I don't like that. I do understand it a little - after all, the book starts when Erin is four (I think) and shows her life and how she grew up to be the way she is. At least, I believe that was the intent. As it was, I couldn't understand over half of what Erin excuse me, SARA did later in life. It seemed to have absolutely no bearing on the choices she made. She made stupid decisions just to progress the story. Hello suddenly being afraid of Stefanos. After all, what villain wouldn't almost rape a woman just because? We need a rape scene because... Yeah, I got nothing. For me, way too much time was skipped in the story.

And now, lets talk about the writing style. I was kept distant from the story, from the people. Not exactly because of the POV style - though we did have some pretty epic head hopping - but because nothing was seen or told. I cannot tell you how many times while reading this book I felt like shaking the author and asking ‘what?'. Everything was so poetic and flowery. I've heard people say that there wasn't enough descriptions, but I'd have to disagree. The problem (at least for me) was that the descriptions didn't actually describe anything. It was like trying to describe a house without using the words wall, roof, wood, brick, glass, door or window. It possible. It's totally possible, but you'll be leaving the more literal minded people going ‘I don't even know what that's supposed to be'. Which, honestly, was the way I felt about this book: confused and indifferent.