So...I am going to have to admit I got lazy earlier this week. I sat down with Poison Study and finished it...and then the next thing I knew I finished Fire Study. I kept putting it off until the next chapter; and if you are an avid reader like me we all know I was just fooling myself. So I figured instead of doing the rapid fire reviews like I did with the Healer Series (since I did those reviews as I finished the books) I would do a full series review for this one...and hopefully do I better job with the Glass Series.
Re-reading this series was amazing, it was where I first started with her books and it was great going back to the beginning and seeing how those books compared to the healer series. And one thing that I have realized is that to me, the Study series was definitely a set of darker books compared to the Healer Series. Yelena had to some pretty messed up things happen to her, and she was fighting through the psychological damage it pretty much caused her. And some of the villains in this series really put Tohon to shame. He would kill people and reanimate their bodies, but the Warpers would torture in a lot of cases and then kill the people and harvest their souls for strength. Yelena definitely had a lot to fight through, and it was amazing seeing how she managed to slowly overcome things as they came to her; especially when she was fighting to understand what her magic was and what she is capable of doing. What was also great was how unique the system of magic is for this series (and by extension the glass series) compared to the Healer series.
Now...I do not know if this is because this is the first series, but so far there has not been a leading male in her other books that has taken the place of Valek for sheer amazingness. He is a complete and utter bad ass and becomes even more so as the series progresses. If for some reason you do not like Yelena, it is still worth it to read the books for Valek, Ari and Janco. I am sure you will develop a character crush one AT LEAST one of them before the end of the books. It would be impossible not to do so. Ari and Janco are the original monkeys (although they are never referred to as such in this book, but this is what the monkeys in the healer series reminded me of).
The only thing I can say is that in comparison to the Healer series, the Study series has more substance to it. It is a little hard to explain and DOES NOT belittle how good the Healer series is. But to me it just seems like there is a lot more character development here, and just a lot more goes on. Although that to me is the only complaint when you compare the newer series to her first one...and really...it is not much of one because all of the characters that she has made are just pure amazing. You can see sort of a pattern between the characters, but it is not cookie cutter. You can see the similarities between Yelena, Avry and Opal but they are definitely far from being the same person. She gives them their own fears, and they have different struggles (however Opal and Yelena are more similar but that is due to the intertwining of their stories which makes sense).
If you started off with any of her other books, I believe you should definitely try out the Study series (especially in order to prepare yourself for the next book which I have the countdown for). You will love it if you love anything else she has written. Although it may be a bit different from if you were to start of with her Inside Out/Outside In duo, but I loved that one too (just not as much as the Study and Glass series).
If you are into the political intrigue that you get from books like The Song of Fire and Ice; the Study series is not on the same level, but it definitely has just enough to make things interesting so do not let that deter you if you are not into that sort of thing. She finds a nice happy medium where you are upset with people in power being corrupted, mean and evil but it is not a complete saturation because there are plenty of people NOT in power who are evil and corrupted...they are more like the figurehead. So pretty please pick this series up and read it, they are definite page turners that you will fall in love with and read more than once.
:) Have a nice end of the week everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment