Review: Spider's Revenge by Jennifer Estep

Spider's Revenge by Jennifer Estep (Elemental Assassin #5)

bought


Synopsis from Goodreads
Old habits die hard. And I plan on mur­der­ing some­one before the night is through.

Killing used to be my reg­u­lar gig, after all. Gin Blanco, aka the Spi­der, assassin-for-hire. And I was very good at it. Now, I’m ready to make the one hit that truly mat­ters: Mab Mon­roe, the dan­ger­ous Fire ele­men­tal who mur­dered my fam­ily when I was thir­teen.

Oh, I don’t think the mis­sion will be easy, but turns out it’s a bit more prob­lem­atic than expected. The bitch knows I’m com­ing for her. So now I’m up against the army of lethal bounty hunters she hired to track me down. She also put a price on my baby sister’s head. Keep­ing Bria safe is my first pri­or­ity. Tak­ing Mab out is a close sec­ond.

Good thing I’ve got my pow­er­ful Stone and Ice magic — and my irre­sistible lover Owen Grayson — to watch my back. This bat­tle has been years in the mak­ing, and there’s a chance I won’t sur­vive. But if I’m going down, then Mab’s com­ing with me...no mat­ter what I have to do to make that happen.


Amazon  US/UK | Amazon kindle US/UK | The Book Depository US/UK | Fishpond(£4.57)

7.5/10

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 I think I reached that point when I don't buy the books in this series when they just come out anymore, but try to get them as cheap as possible on offers. If my library carried this series I wouldn't buy the books at all, otherwise I feel obliged to continue...



You see, there is awesomeness in Elemental Assassin, but to get to it you have to plough through a lot of content filler, and it gets worse with each book. Spider's Revenge regurgitated through 2/3 of what we already knew - the events of Gin's childhood and her past, all 4 previous books of it to be precise. That drove me absolutely insane. 

How many times Gin needs to repeat herself? I don't suffer from memory problems, I don't need to hear the same lines year after year. Kate Daniels series doesn't suffer from it. The content is always fresh and new. Stacia Kane or Karen Marie Moning don't do it as well, and the reader is able to keep up.


So, why did I persevere? Because, my dear reader, the last third of the book is made of awesome. Mab is finally getting her ass kicked big time and, thanks God, we can turn the last page of this impossibly dragged out conflict and get it out of the way.


Funny thing, I don't think I'm interested enough to continue reading the series. However, I do recommend it, especially my personal favorite - Venom, to any fan of urban fantasy. I truly love the idea of Elemental Assassin, it's intensity and brutally efficient fighting scenes, but be prepared to get eventually annoyed with constant verbal rinse-repeat so typical for Ms Estep's writing.


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В общем-то я дошла наконец до того, что читать мне эту серию больше не хочется. Особенно, теперь после того, как Джин наконец-то добила доставшую нас всех, Маб Монро.


Проблема книг Дженнифер Эстеп в том, что она бесконечно пережёвывает факты произошедшего в предыдущих книгах в каждой новой книге. Понятное дело, что такого пережёвывания чем дальше, тем больше, и это ну просто безумно раздражает. Но, если проберётесь через 2/3 такой вот трясины - последняя часть обычно просто супер по интенсивности и яркости экшн, чистое городское фэнтэзи.


Я честно говоря не знаю, смогу ли я продолжить эту серию, но несмотря на мои личные проблемы, всё же советую её всем фанатом ГФ.

Comments

  1. I'm sorry it's not as good as it was. I've only read the first book but I have book 2 and 3 to read. I just don't remember a lot about the first one.

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  2. I am kind of happy now that I did not read more than book 1, which just did not wow me. So I doubt I would be happy at the end here

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  3. Melliane, Blodeuedd, girls, there is goodness and plenty of yummy moments in this series, but the whole thing doesn't wow you, because of the problems I mentioned. So, it's still a good read but very flawed, and it's up to you to decide to put up with the drawbacks or not :)

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  4. I had to stop and read this review because I really like Estep's YA series right now and I saw she was a adult urban fantasy author. HOWEVER I couldn't bring myself to look into the series because I have an extreme phobia of spiders and just the title of the series freaked me out.

    I was curious though... I do get what you mean when books in a series seem to be more of a rehash of the previous ones rather than build on character and plot. That's sad. I feel less guilty about not trying it out now. I'll stick with the Mythos Academy series (which I fear might have the same issue eventually).

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  5. Cat, you should read this series. There are no mentions of actual spiders anywhere, so your phobia will be under control :)
    First few books are excellent, but the longer you read the series the more obvious its weaknesses become. You know, how it goes, sweetheart...

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