Review - Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

Series: Lynburg Legacy #2

Published by Random House Books for Young Readers

Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal

Pages: 370

Rating: 3/5 stars

It's time to choose sides....  

On the surface, Sorry-in-the-Vale is a sleepy English town. But Kami Glass knows the truth. Sorry-in-the-Vale is full of magic. In the old days, the Lynburn family ruled with fear, terrifying the people into submission in order to kill for blood and power. Now the Lynburns are back, and Rob Lynburn is gathering sorcerers so that the town can return to the old ways. 

But Rob and his followers aren’t the only sorcerers in town. A decision must be made: pay the blood sacrifice, or fight. For Kami, this means more than just choosing between good and evil. With her link to Jared Lynburn severed, she’s now free to love anyone she chooses. But who should that be?

Disappointing. I liked all of these characters so much less than I did when we were introduced in Unspoken. The only character I consistently loved was Angela, but how could I ever dislike Angela? This is a girl who uses her spare class to nap and who hates everyone except Kami and Holly. She’s pretty much my soul mate. The conversation between her and Kami about her sexuality is particularly poignant and well-played by Brennan. It’s understated and completely true to who Angela is.

Ash and Jared were a huge let down in this book. First off, there was just way too much of them. I needed a break from the Lynburns, okay? It felt like every other scene was an altercation with either Ash or Jared (or, god forbid, both). Maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but that’s how it felt! There was just far too much boy drama for my tastes. Considering everything on the line, I just don’t have time for that shit. Ash was not a fun character to be around. I understand that he was feeling a bit dejected, considering he has the worst parents ever, but it was really difficult to sympathize with him. I mean, boy did try to kill my soul mate. Ash was whiny and annoying, while Jared was a little piece of shit from page one. He spent pretty much the entire book moping about the fact that Kami cut off the connection between them at the end of Unspoken. He was incredibly selfish, not even considering that Kami might be equally affected by what happened. There was also the issue of his mindlessly hooking up with Holly, which just seemed like drama for the sake of drama. On a side note, and only mildly irritating in the grand scheme of things, Holly really didn’t need to kiss every boy she knew to hide her feelings for Angela (because lets be real, girl’s in looooove).

I found the plot here to be pretty weak. Not a heck of a lot happened until the very end of the book. It was a classic second book in a trilogy with all of the expected missteps. The bulk of the nearly 400 page novel was snarky dialogue and trite love triangle, and it got old very fast.

Brennan’s writing is very humourous. Between the narration and the dialogue, it’s quip central. Every single character has something funny to add. In my opinion, it got to be too much. Instead of adding a lightness to supplement the darkness of what was befalling the town, it started to cheapen it. I have a hard time believing that every person in this small town is so quick-witted. Also, I’m not sure if the writing is to blame or if it’s just me, but I often found myself unsure of who Kami was speaking to, Ash or Jared. That’s not a good sign. I’m pretty sure you should be able to tell who she’s talking to based on what they’re saying as well as the narrative cues surrounding the dialogue, and it just didn’t come together for me.

The pacing also needed work. It seemed like there were long stretches during which nothing happened, with a few ~major events~ thrown in to keep the plot going. The big problem, I think, was lack of gravity to the important scenes. It never felt like anything was really changing or growing throughout the novel. Things were happening, but I had a hard time caring. I ended up skimming the last twenty percent or so because I was losing patience and just wanted it to be over.