Tag: Feverborn book review

Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance

My Review: Feverborn (Fever #8): by Karen Marie Moning

nicholasjgoodsell

Publish Date: January 16th, 2016

Number of Pages: 436 Pages

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Genre(s): Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy

***Warning!!! This review contains spoilers from the previous books in the series, continue reading at your own risk! You’ve officially been warned!!!***

To see my review of book #1 – Darkfever – Click HERE

To see my review of book #2 – Bloodfever – Click HERE

To see my review of book #3 – Faefever – Click HERE

To see my review of book #4 – Dreamfever – Click HERE

To see my review of book #5 – Shadowfever – Click HERE

To see my review of book #6 – Iced – Click HERE

To see my review of book #7 – Burned – Click HERE

To see my Fancast/Dreamcast of the series – Click HERE

Total Star Rating: 2.75 Stars

When you love too hard, you can lose the will to live without them. Everywhere you look is a great big sucking absence of what you once had and will never have again. And life gets weirdly flat and too sharp and painful at the same time, and nothing feels right and everything cuts.”

– Karen Marie Moning, “Feverborn”

I’m going to start off by saying how I find it so strange how torn the Fever series is ever since Karen Marie Moning continued after the fifth book, Shadowfever. I will say, the first five books do stand together as a united front while it had a lot of the issues tied up to reach a reasonable conclusion while a few story aspects were left up in the air, and all the books past it have seemed to veer off, or teeter totter, to explore more uncharted territory while not feeling like KMM is fully latching onto one main conflict anymore. Some people loved Iced, some didn’t, and the same can be said for Burned and now the latest book I’ve read in the series: Feverborn. I try to see all sides in the points made from other reviewers as to why they liked or disliked the books, all while making sure I kept my own opinions on them, and I can conclude that I’m in the subgroup that wasn’t a huge fan of Iced, I loved Burned, and I liked Feverborn just a smidge more than Iced, but I still didn’t love it.

For me, I’ve been pretty open to the spread out feeling that KMM has given us with this phase 2 of the series as I like to call it. Both Iced and Burned allowed her to explore new ideas as to where the series could possibly go next. There are several big conflicts with Cruce and the Black-holes that both threaten the future of our world, and there’s a much larger cast of characters to develop now that the spotlight is shining away from Mac and Barrons a little bit more. Characters like Dani, Ryodan, Christian, Jo, Jada, Kat, and Lor have been given excellent development and only add to series in a positive way—although I like how people are torn about Ryodan showing more emotion in these later books.

I guess for Feverborn, I’m officially at the point of impatience and I want to look at KMM and be like “Girl… just pick a direction already… and stop with the so many recaps we get in literally every book!” This book just felt off because not that much really happened. It’s another thick volume to add to the stack, but that’s only because it’s once again filled with the many inner monologues/thought processes and the many recaps we’ve gotten so often before. Sure, I’m binge-reading these back to back and not waiting a year like if I were to have been reading these books as they release, but c’mon Karen… we get it already! It’s book 8 in the series already, and honestly I thought we’d get further along by now with all that’s going down.

For me, this was just a slower read with a lack of REALLY important plot points happening not until the last fifty or so pages when all of a sudden everything is happening at once, and at least then it seriously revived this book. The ending was the saving grace with all that happens with Jada, Ryodan, and Mac of course! I won’t spoil it, but wow does Karen know how to leave a heart-wrenching cliffhanger!

I’m not gonna lie, this book is making me not want to immediately get into the next one, Feversong, quite as quickly even though there’s that killer cliffhanger I mentioned. I don’t know… maybe I’m nervous about me losing faith in Karen and the series because it’s been so back and forth with these last three books in the series. I love the continuation and the fact that we’re getting more material, but I can’t disagree that it’s been majorly inconsistent when compared to the first five books, and there’s even sub-groups of the fandom that only regard those as the actual series.

There were plenty of things I did like about this book, never fear! There was more romance than normal in this one which I can appreciate; Karen has been matching her characters together and so far I haven’t been disappointed with any of the actual pairings. As we’ve known for awhile now, Cruce is not completely out of the picture and is plotting his escape, so I can’t wait to see when that finally happens. and of course, that cliffhanger ending that has us absolutely terrified because it reveals something maybe all us fans were afraid was going to happen at some point.

What It’s About:

Continuing immediately off the previous book, Burned, we’re back down in Ryodan’s office with our favorite blond member of the pack of nine, Lor, and an invisible Mac to discover something quite unexpected: Dageus Mackeltar isn’t dead! In fact, by the look of it, he’s become a tenth member of the pack of nine… Ryodan is keeping him in a dark cavern while the new member is getting used to his new situation.

The issue of the black holes forming all over is still becoming a huge issue too. In book #6, Iced, a powerful unseelie monster that was known as the Hoar Frost King left these vortex’s that are pretty much mini black-holes wherever he appeared and caused frozen destruction. He’s gone, but these black-holes aren’t, and if they continue to grow and pop up like they are, it’s only a matter of time before the whole planet is sucked in and life as we all know it is absolutely fucked…

There’s an organization called “WeCare” that’s printing off dailies like Dani’s, and they have officially put a price on the heads of Mac, Jada, and the pack of nine…

Cruce is still plotting to get free from the Abbey and is getting some help…

Christian might have to make uneasy alliances in order to help reunite him with his uncle…

Lor and Jo continue doing their thing…

And someone you never thought you’d ever see again makes a shocking return…

What we achieve at our best moment doesn’t say much about who we are. It all boils down to what we become at our worst moment.”

– Karen Marie Moning, “Feverborn”

What I Liked:

  1. New Monster: The Sweeper! Yet Another nasty boss character is introduced into the series: an old, “god-like” character called “The Sweeper” who is actually the real leader behind those weird-ass, creepy cloaked ZEW’s—Zombie-Eating Wraiths—that have been following Mac around since Iced. Not much is known about him, and what is known is revealed in this book and I can’t spoil that for readers, but just know going in that it can’t be good if even the Unseelie King, or technically “Dreamy Eyed Guy,” warns Mac to stay away from him like he did in Burned!
  2. Lot’s of Romance! Like a Sarah J. Maas novel, it seems like all the main characters are getting paired off into couples, some are further along than others, of course. With this is mind, there’s a lot of sex in this book! Like, more sex than usual within one book in this series, which I can’t complain about! Barrons and Mac are still one of my favorite literary couples ever, and they go at it no-holds-barred whenever they get the chance! The romantic tension between Jada and Ryodan seductively continues into this book as well as they slowly but surely learn they need to rely on each other and earn each other’s trust once again, but not without some steamy tattooing scenes between them.
  3. Cruce is Plotting! It’s still moving at a slow pace, but Cruce is still very much in the picture, and he’s not working alone… More happens along these regards, but again, I don’t want to spoil too much!
  4. New Major Goal: Find the Song of Making! So I love how KMM is incorporating more of what happened in Iced even more relevant towards the whole series plot, which are how the black holes that are popping up in every location that the Hoar Frost King had struck. Soon, the entire world could be sucked away and just disappear forever, and it’s learned that the only way to save everyone is to find a spell to use The Song of Making: the Fae’s most pure and powerful form of magic, the most powerful force in the universe. All forms of life stems from it, and it’s a tool that has been passed down from every Seelie Fae Queen to the next, and it’s only to be used in the most dire of emergencies. Ryodan and Barrons have a plan to find out how to use it to save the world!
  5. That Cliffhanger Ending! Wow… what a cruel way to end this book! I loved it even though I’m not okay after it, and I also read it close to 4 in the morning and couldn’t fall asleep afterwards! Worth it though! I won’t give it away, but all I can say is that you’re rewarded with a small victory for two main characters, but then something that we’ve all feared happening becomes canon… do with that what you will!

What I Didn’t Like:

  1. It Felt Like Not as Much Happened…Not gonna lie… Except for the last 50 or so pages, it’s exactly what I said for this point. There were some startling discoveries here and there, but overall I felt like it was the slowest moving book of the whole series! I still liked it more than Iced, but even that book had more going on than this one! It was just a lot of filler with recaps and repetitiveness that we’ve seen since the beginning of the series that we really shouldn’t be seeing by this point.
  2. Where’s the Unseelie Princess?…Where’d you go? I miss you so. Seems like it’s been forever… that you’ve been gone. Okay seriously…. where this bitch at? She has probably one of the coolest introductions into this whole series in the previous book, Burned, and she doesn’t even make an appearance in this one! She’s only mentioned, but c’mon, if even Cruce and the Unseelie Princes are shocked about her, you can’t just leave her out like that! I WANT MORE
  3. Jada’s New Friend…Turns out Jada has a new roommate that goes by the name Shazam. They met while she’d been in the Mirrors for five and a half years, and it turns out she’d brought him back with her into the Abbey with the other Sidhe-Seers… There’s more to this development, but honestly, I thought it was a bit of a stretch. Not that I’ve experienced trauma quite like Dani/Jada has, but this whole storyline just seemed odd to me, and I’m still not entirely sold on the whole “Jada” alter ego thing either…
  4. A Surprise Return…I’m not going to say who, but someone who you believed to never to be seen again makes quite a shocking return to Dublin, and you’d actually never guess who! While I certainly love the unpredictability of it, I’m also extremely torn because it also ruins a character’s whole story arc at the same time. I’m really hoping there’s more explanation on this in the next book, where I feel like their presence will help against how this book ends.

Conclusion:

Feverborn is Another thrilling and unpredictable addition to Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, but probably the slowest of all the books too. It felt like not as much happened in this title, and I wasn’t as into it until the very end when everything goes wrong. I still say I liked it more than Iced, but that doesn’t mean I still wasn’t disappointed with Feverborn, or that I don’t wish more happened in this book. The issue was the too many recaps that occur… sure, a lot is going on in this story and a lot has also already happened to get us all to this point, but I read the hardcover version of this book, and it is a thicccc volume when it feels like it didn’t need to be.

I love the higher number of romance scenes in this title; FINALLY we get past the sometimes juvenile arguments between Barrons and Mac and just let them be together and put more angst on the other developing couples.

That cliffhanger ending is one hell of a doozy, so of course I want to sink my teeth into the next installment, Feversong, which is already the second to the last book of the whole dang series! I feel like KMM has announced that this series will end, like, three times already but then just keeps going with it anyways, which I won’t complain about, as the Fever series is probably the biggest literary obsession of my 2020.

Maybe with how the next book is set that KMM will finally crank up the nitrous oxide and speed us to where the series should be at this point; we will have to wait and see.

Thanks for Reading!

— Nick Goodsell