Reread #2 ( )

Meh. ( )

Another book I bought solely based on the cover. I really should start reading the backs of books. But lucky for me, this one was okay.

Who knew a book about trolls would be good. I found it interesting. It was different. Another part to the fantasy world and I was happy I found it.

It follows the new life of a teen. Running and fighting and becoming a princess! Scandalous makeup sessions and a marriage to a gay man. Oh my!

It was pretty funny and entertaining.

They only thing I didn't like, was teen pregnancy and how okay it seemed. How everyone just accepted it. I know it happens, but it shouldn't be glorified in books. ( )

The Beginning: We are plunged into a heated discussion between Wendy and her high ranking officials (Markis and Marksinnas) about tracker equality. This sets the tone of the novel, one of debates, disagreements and as the first chapter closes, some unexpected developments. [read the first chapter]

The Middle: I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll just come out and say that the middle lost me. Wendy had a lot of tough decisions to make, not only with the kingdom but with her personal life, and a lot of the things she does with her personal life, well, it confused me. Without spoiling the book, it seemed to me that some minor characters sprang up and took over. It is not my intension to impose my opinion of how the characters should behave on the author; so I think that, even if I did not like the outcome, she had her story to tell and she told it. My biggest concern was that I did not love the characters that she wanted me to love nor did I hate the characters that she wanted me to hate - and this is not only in relation to the romantic storyline.

The relationship between Wendy and Finn, Wendy and Elora and Wendy and Willa were so fleshed out in the first two books that I could almost feel what Wendy was feeling towards them as she narrated the story. I did not feel the same way about Wendy and Trove, Wendy and Loki and Wendy and Oren.

The End: Not the ending I expected and not in the conclusion I saw coming, so that was pretty good. Again, my only issue here is that I wanted to feel more for the characters, but wasn’t moved by them.

Overall: I have a lot of respect for Amanda Hocking, she is publishing her own books, she’s making her own way and she’s fulfilling her dream. I want to give this trilogy 5 stars, but - barring a few editorial mishaps throughout the series - this book was the downfall. I spent a lot of time thinking about this review, I didn’t want to write it and give a low “grade” just because things didn’t go my way. Also, understanding that this was self published, I didn’t want to dock a “grade” due to any gramatical mishaps that might have been otherwise caught. I had to put these aside and I think about my biggest struggles with the narrative; there were only two things. The first addressed above, I wish I had some time to really love the characters that Wendy loved and to really hate the characters that Wendy hated - even to be a little frightened of Oren. The last was something that ran though the series, I felt that Wendy narrated a lot of things that I didn’t need to know, that sometimes I was being told things instead of shown things.

While I did not love Ascend, I did enjoyed the Trylle trilogy on a whole. I am going to follow Amanda and read her upcoming books. I am looking forward to see how she grows as an author. I see a lot of potential and I think she’s an excellent story teller with good stories to tell.
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I really wanted to like this book. The book was still diverting, but its flaws prevented me from getting anything of value from the book.

From the beginning I have not liked Loki, which is probably a big reason why the ending of this book was so unsatisfying. I felt that his only role was to fulfill the Twilight/Hunger Games romance plot device (the second perfect guy that tries to fight for the heart of the female lead), which really irritated me. It was fun to pick teams for a while (I was Team Edward and Team Gale all the way—I always root for the guys who got there first), but I am so tired of reading about the same love triangle over and over again. Let's move on to something else, please.

I would have been less annoyed by the whole Wendy/Loki affair if it at least felt believable. Their relationship still seemed forced, and I have a hard time believing that Wendy would jump in bed with a guy she was "head over heels" for mere days after being in love with someone else.

The battle at the end was also unsatisfying because it all felt, once again, forced. Everything worked out just perfectly so that the only people who actually died were the bad guys and the nameless characters.

The switch to present tense in the epilogue also bugged me, but at least it was relatively short.

By the end of the book, the only characters I liked were Willa, Tove, and Elora.

Again, I wish I could have got caught up in the hype that surrounds this series, but there are just too many glaring problems that bother me. ( )