Temper Tantrums

Instead of doing something productive, I decided to find a YA series that I'd started as a teen, but never finished...for whatever reason. I picked up The Dark Angel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce from my job and prepared myself to be dazzled. It started off great! I couldn't get enough the series and finished the first two books in record time. But then the third book just went and f*cking ruined it for me. Talk about being one pissed b*tch.

I WAS NOT LOOKING FOR A FAIRY TALE ENDING. I really wasn't. I mean, I realized (very early on) that this story was not about romance. If it were, then Pierce would have focused a little more of her attention on Irrylath rather than only having him pop up every once in a while. That much was easy enough to decipher. What I WAS looking for, however, was less angst and for the heroine to at least stop getting the raw end of the deal time after time after time after TIME. So she had Erin in the end. Great! Okay! That's wonderful! But can someone please explain to me how much of a difference it made to have Erin go away with Aerial rather Irrylath? If her husband was such a distraction, then wouldn't her best friend have been too? I mean, one could argue that the love that she had for her husband was much different than that which she had for her friend; true enough, but love IS STILL LOVE. In my opinion, the love that she had for Erin was much more tangible than her infatuation with the prince...because she actually knew and spent time her. I understand what Mrs. Pierce was trying to accomplish here, I really do, but it just didn't work for me. It would have made a lot more sense to have Aerial leave by her self. I would have actually bought that and, quite honestly, would have been satisfied in the end. Having her leave one partner behind, only to be replaced by the other made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Sorry, but it didn't.

I wanted (so very much) not the hate this series, but halfway through the last book, I knew exactly what was going to happen. I only finished it because I'd consumed the first two so quickly and had enjoyed them so thoroughly that it would have been pretty lame to stop in the middle of the last one ...So (begrudgingly so) I pushed myself to finish it.

The only impression that this series gave me was that the heroine simply switched places with her husband, and was made to become the vassal of an old, hypocritical, selfish crone who was no better than the witch her self. My opinion has NOTHING to do with romance or lack there of.

The heroine was majorly screwed from the time she left her mother's arms to the very end of this series.

Five stars for the first two books, minus two for the crappy ending.

I could have been reading something else.