Review: Now I Rise

Now I Rise by Kiersten White
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm pretty much suckered in by the pretty covers and the promise of some kind of fantasy shenanigans for this series...but the trouble is, it's such a grimdark slog where nothing seems to happen that it's very, very hard to enjoy what I'm reading.

As I suspected after finishing And I Darken a month or so ago, Now I Rise doubles down on Lada being supremely unlikable while adding next to nothing to her storyline. She's got some kind of mission in mind, using the Hungarian royals to try and usurp Mehmed - again - but whenever we're in her POV, virtually nothing happens, save for a few random scenes of her remembering her past, railing against religion (and using Christians against Muslims just because she can), and even sleeping with Mehmed at one point. As for Radu, his story takes on a few more interesting twists as he becomes a sort of spy for Mehmed, sneaking around Constantinople as that city all but burns down in the face of Mehmed's imminent takeover, and continuing to angst about the fact that he can never be with the one he truly loves.

Radu's story adds more to the ongoing saga, much more, while Lada's story grinds the progress of this book to a halt every time it resumes. Honestly, I'd enjoy this so much more if White were to have focused entirely on Radu - even though his characterization is just stereotypical enough that it makes it hard for him to carry the story for me. As it is, Radu is the only reason I'm going to keep going with this series - that, and those twin letters that make the enticing ending of this book, which still epically fails to live up to the promise of its elevator pitch about a female version of Vlad the Impaler.

I only hope that White manages to wrap everything up in Book 3 - and preferably with tons of heads rolling and being spiked up every-bloody-where.

View all my reviews