The Book of Life

Book Title: The Book of Life

Author: Deborah Harkness

Series: All Souls Trilogy #3

Date Started: July 15th 2014

Date Completed: July 20th 2014

Genres: Romance, Fantasy, Mystery

Rating: Four stars

Review:

The Book of Life was a satisfying end to the All Souls Trilogy, but I have to admit, I wasn't blown away. Though I really enjoyed delving back into Diana's world, I just wish it hadn't been so anchored to herself and Matthew. I really would have loved to see the other characters start to go their own ways, and also discover more of the world past the usual locations.

When Diana Bishop returns from the past, now welcomed into the de Clermont family, it seems trouble has followed her through the centuries and is now lurking back at Sept Tours. Still with two pages of The Book of Life to recover, and a pregnancy neither Diana nor Matthew are sure she'll survive, the new weaver must double her efforts to find the ancient book and uncover the secrets of the four species. But Matthew's rogue blood-rage-driven son has emerged, and now everyone in her world is threatened by what he plans.

I'm not sure whether it's the fact I've grown as a reader, or I've grown to miss the characters, or whether the book was written slightly differently, but I found the last instalment in this trilogy far less heavy than the previous books. I progressed through it quite quickly, and found the explanations made at least some kind of sense. (Though I still admit, while I did pick up the general gist, the genetics explanation for everything still went over my head.)

I also felt that the characters worked together a lot better than I remember. The layers and layers of relationships, though hard to keep track of, actually started to make sense in order to move the story along. Also, they were quite cute a lot of the time.

Most of my faults in this book were to do with the story. Admittedly, they were just little things, but they bugged me quite a bit throughout the novel, and stopped me from being blown away. The first thing is that not much happens in the whole book. Again, the All Souls Trilogy isn't designed for fast paced events and action, and the reasons for these slow parts were valid, but reading about the little mundane things didn't help winning me over.

The other little thing was that no one seemed surprised by the existence of other creatures. Though I like the nice change from the typical reaction, it wasn't really justified with anything: people were comfortable with there being other species among them and then it wasn't mentioned again. It just bothered me.

And then there was the big problem for me. I really do love all the male characters, and all the female ones. But I'm not convinced that these women were the strong, fierce characters they're referred to as. Whether this was because of their actual presentation, or just the abundance of male domination everywhere, I can't say.

When it came to the climax, I felt suddenly quite detached from the story. When I had finally become used to the slow, complex pacing of the first two thirds, events suddenly started happening everywhere in so quick a succession I hadn't entirely worked out what was going on before something new occurred. Because of this, it didn't really feel like a climax to me, hence not being blown away by this finale.

Though the story may have its faults, I have to say how I'm completely in love with all the characters. Though they're all a bit full of themselves, they do have their moments and I wouldn't mind being friends with a few of them, despite the vigorous mood swings.

I'm not exactly tired of Diana and Matthew, but I'm definitely more interested in the secondary characters. The protagonist couple just become a bit predictable before long, though they do work well together in the story.

On the other hand, Marcus and Phoebe are my life. My biggest issue with the whole thing was that there wasn't enough of them. Marcus has always been my favourite character since the beginning, and now that he has an equally amazing significant other, I honestly couldn't get enough of them. But put aside the fact that I'm biased, they had a really interesting dynamic that I wanted to learn more about, and each of them individually impacted the story in a new way.

I could write all night about which characters I love the most, and why they're so loveable, but instead I'll just mention a few because I couldn't write my last review for the series without them being included. Gallowglass expanded even more as a character and was just as lovely as the past books. I was so happy when Jack turned up, and I loved his relationship with Matthew especially. Ysabeau and Nathaniel were brilliant as always. And Chris and Miriam are quickly becoming two new favourites - and I was so happy to have some properly sarcastic characters.

The Book of Life definitely isn't a heart pounding ride, but it isn't that kind of book. Though the smaller things that I didn't really care about did get on my nerves a couple of times, the pacing wasn't a major issue, as the story is built on the thought-processes and intellect of the characters, rather than the rapid action scenes and fights.

I've really enjoyed the whole All Souls Trilogy, and would recommend it to anyone who likes urban fantasy romances. The is definitely an adult book, so don't go in expecting an easy read with non-mature content. You'll be very surprised. As always, start at the beginning, but I'm sure Diana and Matthew's story could be enjoyed by many.

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