I read: The Essence

The Essence  by Kimberly Derting
(Book 2 in The Pledge trilogy)


I don't dislike this series, but I can't say that I absolutely love it either.  The story is interesting, but it absolutely has to be a series.  Which to me means that it really should just have been one longer book.  In my opinion and experience, if a series is well written, you could read each book on its own, but the writing makes you not want to. So far, each book hasn't really had its own story at all; it's all part of the grander scheme. 


Besides that, the story is interesting.  I do want to keep reading the third novel to find out how it ends.  The main character is a bit annoying - always trying to handle things on her own because she thinks she has to, even though it just makes her look ridiculous and have to do things that she wouldn't otherwise have to.  This is a pretty common problem for me - not liking female lead characters in books - I'm not sure if it's a problem with how I perceive the world, or whether I just want to be able to hold female leads to a better standard.  Being independent and handling things on your own, never, EVER means that you can't tell people when horrible things are happening.  And yet in books that often seems to be the case.  It's as if they never trust the people they're supposed to care about the most.  And especially they don't trust themselves.

As I said, I'm interested to know what the final result is, though I'm pretty sure I know already.  I will read the third novel.  I'm giving this one three stars because if it was any longer, I probably wouldn't have bothered to finish it.  I'll finish the series, mainly because they've been an easy read so far, and the individual books have been quite short so they're not a big time-waster.