ridel reviewed The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett (The Demon Cycle, #3)
Expecting Demons? Try High School Relationship Drama
1 star
The Daylight War is not the book I was expecting. Renna and Inevera are now the main characters, while Arlen has done little since the first book other than wander around the countryside punching things. Jardir was elevated from sidekick to main character in the second novel, and while it was annoying to stop reading about Arlen, I was willing to give it a pass given their opposing roles in a possible epic battle.
The back of the book would have you think this is about the ongoing struggle between Arlen and Jardir. It's not. The reality is that The Daylight War is about Inevera growing up and becoming the woman you already know in The Desert Spear. Worse, it retells the events of the last book, but now you get to see what Inevera was doing. Unbelievable. I don't want to spend 50% of every new book learning …
The Daylight War is not the book I was expecting. Renna and Inevera are now the main characters, while Arlen has done little since the first book other than wander around the countryside punching things. Jardir was elevated from sidekick to main character in the second novel, and while it was annoying to stop reading about Arlen, I was willing to give it a pass given their opposing roles in a possible epic battle.
The back of the book would have you think this is about the ongoing struggle between Arlen and Jardir. It's not. The reality is that The Daylight War is about Inevera growing up and becoming the woman you already know in The Desert Spear. Worse, it retells the events of the last book, but now you get to see what Inevera was doing. Unbelievable. I don't want to spend 50% of every new book learning about someone's past history, and to re-read events from another's perspective is insulting when it's in the sequel. Flashbacks are lazy enough, but this takes it to a new level.
Peter Brett weaved a creative world with demons appearing in the night, but his writing skill is lacking. Not only do we revisit Inevera's marriage schemes with Jardir, all the other characters are dealing with high school relationship drama: gossip, sex, marriage, babies. The worst of these is Reena's B-Plot... she was inexplicably shoehorned into The Desert Spear, and I read her parts waiting for Arlen to show because that was the only way to read about the character I loved from the first novel. Now to add insult to injury, even Arlen's scenes are dripping with relationship drama thanks to Reena.
The last third of the book is what I was waiting for, but it's too little too late. With the majority of page count dedicated to relationship drama, the battles with the demons feel ad-hoc and our heroes unprepared. There's a lot of implied upgrades and preparations for the demon war, but you won't be reading about them because this isn't a book about fighting demons, silly reader. This is about relationship gossip, and who is sleeping with whom! Ah... and when the climax of the book abruptly arrives, it's no surprise that the author reaches for a cheesy cliffhanger in order to sell the next book.
To summarize: the main characters you like get replaced, you get spend 50% of the book re-reading the events of the LAST book, and there's more relationship drama than demon fighting.
Not Recommended.
