The Hidden Goddess (Veneficas Americana #2)
by M.K. Hobson
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
[caption id="attachment_68" align="alignright" width="273"]
The Hidden Goddess by M.K. Hobson[/caption]I like to read in the bath. I started it last winter as a method of alleviating back pain (of which I am entirely too young to be experiencing), but it’s transitioned into a much anticipated nightly ritual. It’s my quiet time where I can relax and light some candles turn on the Scentsy (we have a no-flame policy since I managed to leave swirls of soot trellising up the wall).
Every night, however, I’m faced with a challenge: getting the water to the right temperature. If it’s too hot, I’m jumping out in five minutes looking like a lobster that’s just finished a 5k. If it’s too cold, it’s just annoying and I spend the rest of my time trying to drain and add water to find the right temperature instead of relaxing. Either way, it’s not enjoyable.
So, as I was sitting in my bath thinking about what I thought about The Hidden Goddess and not finding the exact words, I realized the best way to describe it was like lukewarm bathwater. It had its hot moments, but it was so diluted with bland characters and unnecessary diversions that it came out being irritatingly tepid. I felt like a book I might’ve very well enjoyed had been wasted.
The book continues where Native Star leaves off. Freshly engaged, Emily Edwards is trying to acclimate to stuffy etiquette rules in New York City while her famous Warlock fiancé, Dreadnaught Stanton, is busy preparing to be made head of the magical institute. When the ceremony doesn’t go according to plan, Stanton becomes even more immersed in keeping the Institute from falling.
To keep Emily out of the way, the Institute sends her to Boston on a lead to find her grandparents. She returns to New York City with not only knowledge about her grandparents, but her information about her father and insight on the current war being brought against the Institute (and the world). But she’s pushed aside, ignored, and her requests to meet with her fiancé go unheard.
Of course, she has to seek out answers for herself.
And that’s when the plot really begins – which would be great if it weren’t 65 percent through the book. Listen, understand background information is required for establishing a compelling character, but so much of this could’ve been addressed in the first book in the series (maybe in place of the excessive combat scenes with minor characters). In a sequel, I want to see the main character in action and continuing to mature and grow, not just beginning.
In this midst of Emily’s awakening where she finds out where she’s from, who her family is, who she is, what her hair sticks mean and everything else bottled up in that five year period before coming to Pap’s house (and I do literally mean bottled up, her memories were extracted and preserved in a bottle), and her channeling the painfully nebulous Ososoley (the earth goddess) there is this little bothersome thing called a “plot” that comes up every so often.
And it’s almost out of desperation that the two stories are tied together.
There’s the credomancer, Fossiumus, who seems likely to want Stanton to fail, the abduction of Zeno (title), the Goddess of the Black Glass and her troupe that are trying to end the world or bring back her lover or feed her pet liver (something of that nature), the secret “anecdote” that would cure the earth and prevent major magical manifestations (but also would kill Stanton since he is “burned,” which I vaguely remember it means something like magic flows in and out of him without his control), the Sini Miri (seekers of the anecdote), the sangrimancers (seeking general badness), and Stanton’s questionable past as a sangromancer.
Deep breath.
All of the plots had potential. If they were introduced gradually through a series of books, I might’ve been on pins and needles between releases. Instead, they were basically vac-u-sealed between the front and back cover. No anticipation, just confusion.
By the time I reached the climactic action scene the final 40 percent of the book had been leading up to, I wasn’t likely in the best place to be judging it. I’d already given up reading the book and just wanted to find out the ending. I skipped through the overdramatic “good-vs-evil” transformations, every once and a while catching some most-likely unintentionally humorous dialogue such as Stanton’s war cry: “Itzlatacoliuhqui, Misery of Humankind, Goddess of Black Glass. Let me enter! I have come to destroy you!”
*snort*
The Epilogue was cute, albeit a poster child for a “riding off into the sunset”-style ending. I don’t mind that, but it did seem a little too easy. The solutions to Stanton’s ailment (being burned) and heavy burden of running the Institute seemed to come out of thin air. How could they not have thought about any of this before?
There were a few moments I enjoyed, most of them centered on Emily. During the press conference, when Mrs. Jescenzka was relying on magic to sway most of the tabloid press in Emily’s favor but met resistance from a serious journalist from the New York Times, Emily defied “orders” to ignore the reporter’s questions. She marched down and handed him exclusive evidence proving that there was a plot against Stanton, valuing truth instead of lies.
I’d be interested in discussing this book with someone else who has read it just to see if I’m completely off my rocker, but there were so many parts that just didn’t click.
What was the point of the hair sticks? Because, seriously, looking back on it I’m pretty sure a bunch of characters died and time was wasted on something that was tossed away like an expired newspaper.
The spontaneous, emotionless kiss with Dmitri that only served the purpose of a shouting match and a heated threat to call off the engagement? It may as well have been written in there that Dmitri was under a spell from some evil sangromancer that made him kiss Emily just to destroy Stanton and overthrow the Institute because I can’t see any other reason for it.
What about dear ol’ Pap? At the beginning of Native Star, Emily put a love charm on a handsome, wealthy lumberman so she could provide for aging Pap. In fact, it was the promise of a few hundred dollars from the Institute to care for Pap that finally persuaded her to go with Stanton. For her troubles – which ended up being an understatement – she was eventually awarded $20,000. But there’s no mention of anything getting back to Pap. Actually, there doesn’t seem to be much concern about Pap whatsoever until she reads the newspaper article about catastrophic disasters happening in nearby Sacramento. When she returns to check on him, she mentions nothing about money. He seems to be still living his normal, meager existence. I mean, I’m not saying he needed to build a mansion worthy of MTV Cribs or start wearing gaudy gold chains, but you’d think there would be some mention of relief of thankfulness that – even though mutant bugs are terrorizing San Francisco – she knows Pap will at least have food on his table. And with all the disasters going on on the West Coast, why doesn’t Emily ever think about trying to relocate Pap? Has she really become that self-absorbed?
And, most importantly, WHY IS EVERYONE SO GDAMNED NEEDLESSLY EVASIVE? If the Institute spent a quarter of the time solving problems it does creating elaborate subterfuges...if the Sini Miri put together a simple mission statement instead of tactics like stalking and death threats...
The next book is scheduled for release in October, but, after reading the description, I don’t think I’ll be buying it. Instead of following the story of Emily and Stanton and their new life together, it jumps ahead to their son. With the revolving door of characters from the first two books – none of which ever developed any depth – I’m not eager to abandon Emily (the one character I feel somewhat close to), in favor of a new lead.
0 comments :