Review: Welcome to more Alex the Idiot Adventures!!!
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 3, 2014
So I want to say that I was really holding out hope for this series it has a lot to offer and is great fun to read. The writing is good the plot hooks are fun and the system of cartels adds endlessly fun things to add. In this book we have Alex and the rest fighting against the bad guys several plot hooks happen that we have no idea why but hey that is part of this authors writing style. The story does get slightly furthered and the characters do get fleshed out more. So why the bad review well read below.Good1: Most of the characters are fun and well thought out each does come across as distinct and individualized. Thats a hell of a good piece of writing given the amount of characters.2: The world is dynamic and seems to have all kinds of things going on. You have multiple view points and they do add to the overall complexity of the plot. Sometimes this is fun sometimes it is irratating but in this installment I would say it was fun.3: The author does tend to follow his own rules so you will not find anyone suddenly getting massive powers and saving the day.4: Overall the flow of the book is nice just as you are starting to get bored with a point of view it changes so thats nice tho I tend to hate the over 6 POV style.Bad1: Alex. Wow I since I started these books I have hated him. He is weak. Stupid. Totally lacking in anything that remotely would make him interesting to read about. So lets looks at the cast and compare huh? Alice cool shadow powers and great fighter. Micheal upgraded and now able to be a massive power in combat. Mitsuri is awesome and comes across as deadly and scary. Now these are the adults how maybe that is unfair. So Katya cool powers and the top when it comes to fighting. Mia jin another fully capable fighter and deadly with a cool power that is super useful. Renton super sneaky and deadly as well as just overall shady character. Timor deadly very deadly. Haley wow she could be nasty to have to go against if you could not counter her. And then we have Alex. Scared of combat. Sucks at shooting. Kinda cowardly. Power puts him to sleep. Now in this one he does get better but so does everyone else. I often winced when his chapters came up his constant whining was grating. His constant fear and stupidity in combat wanting to talk or just being out of it made me start skimming.2: The pace of the books is quite slow we get a lot of plot hooks that make no sense I get these are set ups for later but still each book should have an arc that is completed this was not done. Instead we get brief encounters of violence that mean very little.3: The ending really? Over a thousand pages we have read and we STILL don't get any knowledge of why Alex has lost his memory or anything on Eerie. That killed it for me as well.OverallNow there is a lot of good things about this books but the bad things kill it for me. I really wanted to like this book and series but after waiting 3 books for the main character to get to be fun to read about I think I am done. When I think of books to recommend I just don't see this being one of them. What am I going to tell my friend it is fun to read except for the main character who is stupid, whiny and the weakest one? That's a winning endorsement. I am left with the simple fact that Alex is the way he is because the author uses him as a plot device to introduce concepts to the reader. Or maybe he will go through a major overhaul in the next book. Either way I don't see me reading it. My hope for a competent main character in this series is dead.