Review: Rise by Anna Carey
Publication Date: April 2, 2013
Synopsis:
Everything in Eve's life has been taken away from her. She lost her freedom, her choices, and the love of her life, Caleb.
Forced into a marriage by her father, Eve only remains civil toward her husband and her father for the sake of one thing - the chance to kill her father.
The question is, can she actually do it?
Thoughts:
Before I actually give my opinion, can someone just give me a round of applause or a pat on the back for finally reading and finishing this book? I honestly think I've been saying that I'll read this since the beginning of last year, and it finally happened. Oh, and I do just want to point out that this is a very ranty review.
Let me just say that this is one of the worst books I've ever read in terms of plot. One could actually say that this book contains no plot at all. You'd think that from the synopsis, things would get more interesting, but they really don't. We actually spend the majority of this book in a very uneventful state, with nothing to look forward to. The so-called action within the book is nothing more than a poorly executed plot device that does little to push the book forward. Everything that occurs in the book is so badly written and pieced together that you can really just read the last chapter instead of reading the first 300 pages.
This book could also win an award for having what I consider to be some of the worst, most unintelligent, dislikable characters I've ever read. I'd never ever been through a process like this with the characters of a series, one in which I've felt nothing but frustration for every single character since the beginning of the trilogy. I can't say that I've ever liked any one of the characters in this trilogy, and I literally will not care if they all just died. Yeah, that's how unattached I am to these characters. They make terrible decisions all the time, which they never take responsibility for. There is also ZERO character development through the trilogy, which is quite impressive. All the characters stay completely stagnant and cease to do anything with the lives they've been given.
There wasn't an actual point within the book where something resembling a climax came into existence. There was no drama, no action, no intensity, nothing at all. It was very lackluster. Sure, things happened, but nothing was even remotely impactful. I can make an educated guess about where the climax was and what it was, but I can also say that it was so easy to miss. You could breeze past it without even realizing that you went past the climax.
I was very confused with the ending of the book. What was supposed to be the conclusion was simple just a chapter. This book honestly should just have been what happens after the last chapter of the book because the ending was nothing. There was no impact to the ending and it was so incredibly flat. Like, it was flatter than a plank of wood. Flatter than a British pancake. Flatter than the flattest plain on Earth. This IS the flattest thing on Earth. That made no sense (like this book), but it works.
To be more precise, there is just no resolution to this book. You could fill an entire book with the questions you still have at the end of the book. Nothing was resolved at all, there were so many loose ends, and it was messier than a toddler at dinner-time. I can't say that I actually understand what really happened at the end of the book because I was so confused. Everything was left in such an open manner that the reader can re-write the book in its entirety in order to come up with a resolution. What we're left with at the end feels more like what is typically the middle of the second book in a trilogy, leaving you incredibly unsatisfied and feeling like you wasted all the time you spent on this trilogy.
Nothing in this book impacted me. There were many moments that were supposed to incite emotion, feeling, or some kind of reaction. What I did was glance over the words and move on. If this book impacted someone else, I would honestly wonder how and why.
I'll be very honest with you here - Anna Carey is really terrible at writing anything related to injury or death. She's so bad at relating emotion and feeling from these incidents, which makes such scenes very dull and without meaning. In several cases, she had the opportunity to TRY making a death or injury more detailed and do more than just declare the event, but she never did. It was simply a case of "Here, this is a death/injury" and then we move on in the next paragraph.
Even while I was reading this, I was questioning what part of it made any kind of sense. It's really hard to explain, but when you read this, you'll realize that nothing makes sense. The initial premise of the book isn't touched upon after the first half of the first book, and then it's just brought up sporadically to remind you what started the whole thing. And especially when you come to the end of the book, you realize that what started everything in the first place was never resolved and you have no idea how or why you continued on in a series where everything derailed from the inciting incident.
Also, let me just say that Eve, the main character, is such a sorry excuse for a main character. In any other situation, she'd be that character who was mentioned once, then dies on the next page. She's one of my most disliked main characters ever, and I don't understand how her storyline was dragged out into three books when it really could've been condensed into a single, 350-page book.
This book was completely unnecessary and should have either been something else entirely, or just removed from existence. I could honestly re-write the whole thing into a 100 page conclusion that would be significant better than this ending. AND I'll even toss in some character development, good action, and proper plot.
Character(s):
I do want to talk about how absolutely ridiculous Eve is. The way her mind works will often make you wonder if she even possess a brain. The decisions she makes, her actions, and everything about her will drive you to a point where abusing the book is better than reading about her. She frustrated me to no end purely by existing and completely failed to deliver anything meaningful. Not to mention the literal obsession she and Caleb have with each other. It's unhealthy, unrealistic, ridiculous, and a terrible image of what a relationship is and should be like.
I'm not sure what it is, but I just hate any fictional character named Caleb. I can't bring myself to like any character named Caleb, but I'm fine with real people. I swear, it's like the fictional Calebs are trying to make me hate them all and doing it on purpose.
Overall:
1 star. Please, just don't read this trilogy. I have nothing nice to say about this at all. Do yourself a favor and just don't read it.
