Horde by Ann Aguirre
My rating: 4/5 cats
this summer, the plan is to return to a bunch of YA series that i started and never finished for whatever reason. because it’s important to have goals. and closure.
i have no idea why i paused for so long with this series, because i remember loving it, but pause i did. fortunately for me, unlike ilsa j. bick who makes you work to reorient yourself, aguirre does a good job gently reminding the reader who may have taken a couple of years off from the series of the key events from the earlier books. so, thanks for that.
however, when i started this final book, i was a little apprehensive. because i do NOT remember the previous books being so preoccupied with kissing. the first chapter has A LOT of kissing talk in it.
but then it ends with the line: When next I woke, the world was a blur of snarls and yellow fangs.
and i remembered why i liked this series.
thankfully, all the love triangling was left behind in book two. there’s some unavoidable fallout from it that affects the events here, but this one is definitely focused on action instead of on boy-dithering. there’s still romancey bits, but it’s all just focused on fade, whose specific brand of damage is at least complicated and original enough for me to not roll my eyes. much.
because there’s still stuff like this:
Then he sighed and rubbed his cool cheek against mine. “I should’ve stayed close to you. When you went under, my life ended. I don’t think I breathed until you did.”
“You can live without me,” I said.
“I don’t want to.”
I feared a love like this – that made us incomplete without each other. It was beautiful but treacherous, like snow that looked white and pure and lovely from the safety of your window, but when you stepped out to touch the softness, the cold first stole your breath, and then your will to move, until you could just lay down in it and let the numbness take you. Yet I didn’t want to be without him either, so I did’t chide him for the statement. After all, I’d braved the horde to bring him back, even if Fade had believed he was broken beyond fixing.
which is still cause for the rolly eyes, but at least deuce recognizes that this all-consuming love is problematic, and it doesn’t, for the most part, prevent her from being badass.
because the overwhelming tone of this book is of badassery. fighting, killing, bleeding badassery.
this book introduces new characters and brings back some we haven’t seen since book one. and aguirre’s not shy about killing some of them off.
because—freaks, muties, whatever you wanna call ’em—there are A LOT of them in this book. “horde” is no exaggeration. and these creatures have been going through some rapid evolutionary changes that have only made them harder to fight; their movements harder to predict.
deuce, the great character with the unfortunate name, adds to her skill set in this book. in the first book, she is all huntress—trained for one thing and one thing only, never expecting to live past twenty. in the second book, she was exposed an alternative way of life where family, community and love were not the weaknesses she’d been taught were breeder-concerns, and she became more human and more thoughtful; no longer just the thing that holds the knives. and in this book, everything she has learned about fighting combines with what she has learned about people and she emerges into a true leader; all skills and strategy and figuring out how best to bring more fighters to her side—understanding people means understanding what they are willing to die for.
but it’s not easy. and i think that’s what i liked best about this book—i mean, she’s a scrawny little sixteen-year-old girl. blade-prowess or not, i think i would have been irritated if she managed to rally a giant army just by soapboxing at all the cloistered, terrified settlements. but the fact that it’s a struggle, the fact that she recognizes her own weaknesses and calls upon advisors and that everything takes so much time—it’s frustrating to her, but it’s so rewarding to a reader. because even when you’re reading something so clearly in the fantasy realm, you want it to be a little realistic. you want there to be a struggle. and you DEFINITELY want a booby-trap-in-the-forest sequence like you’re in endor or sherwood forest with kevin costner.
because forest standoffs with booby traps are the best
it’s a strong finale. we finally get our freak origin story, there’s some character redemption, some chilling developments and unexpected heroes. we get a little flash-forwarding, which is always nice, View Spoiler ». i’m definitely glad i returned to this world, and that the third book didn’t fall apart. or have too much kissing.
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