I read this book in an exercise of not judging a book by its cover (and to get the book with the most embarrassingly ridiculous title off my shelves). Unfortunately, you may feel free to judge this book by its cover.

The other unfortunate thing about this book is that I didn't realize before starting it that this is the third book in a series. Perhaps some of what was lacking in this book is explained in the first two books in the series, but I'll never know as I have no intention of ever reading them.

This story started out with a whole lot of characters with unrememberable names doing things for unknown reasons. It skipped back and forth between different plots confusingly. I had difficulty paying attention and found myself thinking about other things as I was reading this. Eventually, though, things settled down, plots were thinned out, characters were killed off and it became easier to follow what was supposed to be happening. I don't know if it was really because the writing got better or just because I got a little more used to it.

Throughout the book, though, the writing was clunky, the plot was disjointed, and the characters were shallow. Plot lines were dropped at seeming random and characters would suddenly do things that previously there was no suggestion they ever might do.

The best I can say for this book is that halfway through I still wanted to finish it, although if I had somehow lost my copy, I wouldn't have bothered to pick up a new one. ( )