Ascend

Title: Ascend (Trylle #3)
Author: Amanda Hocking

Initial thoughts: I'm just imagining any time that Duncan walks into their room to get them now, he has his hand over his eyes.

So, I really enjoyed it. All the romances worked out about as I figured they would, maybe even better. Honestly, I even called the pregnancy. The bonus stories included in the editions I read were really enjoyable and I'm glad they were included. The climax was a little short, and maybe even a little anti-climatic. To me, I think maybe that's because it was never really about killing Oren, but about following your heart and working to enact change. Elora finally told Wendy that she had loved her this whole time and that Elora thought Wendy should actually work to find happiness and not completely give herself over for the kingdom. This frees Wendy so she is no longer trapped feeling that she has to please her mother by following all the old ways. Her and Tove are able to admit that their marriage isn't going to work. She wants to be with Loki. Once she makes up her mind to make a move, Oren is barely an obstacle. Yeah, it has to be a challenge otherwise someone would have done it long before, but he represented the old ways and she was already making advances in moving forward by making Markis and Marksinnas help out with Oslinna and by taking the fight to the Vittra. He was already defeated as soon as she decided to change the game. So the real point of that scene was that she held Loki as he nearly died in her arms, she gave him her life energy to bring him back, and they both fully admitted to loving each other and didn't care who knew it. I will fully admit that the scene with Duncan's legs scared me a bit. He wasn't important to any of the romance so she could kill him off if she wanted to and I was worried it was going to be like, they would honor his memory, use him and the fact that he gave his life to ending this war as a way to get more equality for the other trackers. He was such a genuinely good soul, though, that his death would have been absolutely terrible. It'd be like killing off Jack in House of Night, but worse because there was a reason for killing him off but killing Duncan would have just been getting an extra character out of the way and not actually accomplishing anything with it. I was genuinely worried. Huge sigh of relief when he wasn't dead and they kept him from becoming so. Also, I really enjoyed how much Wendy grew up throughout the books. In the first one, she was all whiny and "I don't want to do any of this." Get to this one and she's being a responsible adult, making decisions based on more than her own selfish desires. Don't get me wrong, you should do things that make you happy and you shouldn't sacrifice your entire life to doing what others want you to do, but you do need to keep in mind that there are consequences to your decisions and those affect other people. Wendy learned this and I think by the end she found a good balance of following her heart and doing what she believed to be right, but basing it on what was right for the kingdom, not just for herself and not just what others told her would be right.

Side note: why do they wait until the glossary, located at the very back of the book and only located in the final novel of the series, to give me the correct pronunciation for Trylle? I've been going back and forth between a couple pronunciations this whole time and I finally learn how to say it correctly only after I've finished the series. Someone needs to rethink that.

Rating: I'd give this series 4/5. It was very enjoyable, fairly predictable, but I'm always a sucker for a good romance. I probably won't read it again, but maybe some day when I'm bored I'll find another book by this author to read.