THE RUNAWAY KING by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Review)

(2.5/5, but I'm feeling generous and rounding up.)

STATUS: Second book in The Ascendance Trilogy

AUTHOR: Jennifer A. Nielsen

GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy, Adventure

PUBLISHER: Scholastic

LOVE TRIANGLE: Yes--sort of. Jason's clearly in love with Imogen, but feels honor-bound to marry Amarinda. 

PAGES: 350

Basic Plot: The continuing adventures of Prince Jaron of Carthya. After an "old friend" delivers a threatening message to Jaron in the form of a fake assassination attempt, Jaron believes the only way to save his kingdom is to "flee his throne." Facing dual threats from the King of Avenia and a band of pirates (in league with Avenia), Jaron must infiltrate the pirates and find a way to defeat them. Along the way, Jaron crosses paths with a band of thieves, allowing him to re-adopt his alias, Sage; with the help of their oddly moral leader (Erick) and a plucky young thief-in-training (Fink), Jaron makes his way to Tarblade Bay where his courage and nerve are tested.

*sigh*

I feel like this book not only suffers from "middle-book-in-a-trilogy" syndrome, but also exists because Jennifer Nielsen really wanted to write about pirates. (But even then, if you like pirates, you may not like this book. More on that in a moment.)

One of the aspects of the first book that worked really well was Sage-as-Unreliable-Narrator. Throughout The False Prince you pretty much knew Sage wasn't being completely honest with you -- there were little snarky asides, vague accounts of where he had gone, and little breadcrumbs to the reader (e.g. Sage insisting that he could read -- if the material was worth reading about). But the problem with unreliable narrators, combined with first person POV, is that, once "the gig is up," you can't use that device anymore. That is, once Sage reveals himself to be Jaron, the curtain is up, and up for good. Once Jaron starts telling the story, the mystery is gone and if Jaron doesn't reveal everything, he reveals much more than Sage did. He's also quite annoying...he's not nearly as flippant (an aspect of Sage's persona) and witty, and we see more of his internal struggle, which means more frustration, more uncertainty, more doubt. Sage's mask is much more compelling than Jaron's truth.

And yet...for some reason, I couldn't not read this book. Every time I picked it up, I'd read about 50-60 pages, and still want to know what happened next -- even if I was frustrated with it the whole time. Hence the three stars. For all its faults, The Runaway King tells a good story and keeps the action moving, so I appreciate that.

I do have to say: I like Imogen. She's one of the few female characters in this series, and she doesn't have an easy time of it. In a way, I kinda feel like she's the Hermione to Jaron's (inferior) Harry/Ron hybrid. For much of this book, Jaron is moping around, angry at everyone for really vague, undefined reasons. I feel like Imogen rolls her eyes at Jaron's antics a lot and, to be honest, if Imogen wasn't around, Jaron would be pretty screwed. Whereas in the first book it seemed like they both were always one-step-ahead of everyone else, here, it's just Imogen. She plants the flowers and hides the knives before Jaron has even made it to the pirate camp. She knows him, and what he'll do, and does her best to protect him. And while that can be a bit of a depressing role -- girl who does nothing but enable her love to succeed -- Imogen's a feisty pistol. She does what she wants, takes risks, and knows her own mind. Plus, when Jaron goes all Edward Cullen on her and says clearly fake hurtful things to her, she accepts it; but then, unlike Bella, she FIGURES IT OUT. Fairly quickly, she realizes that he's just being an ass to "protect her," and she doesn't lie around moping. (Also unlike Bella, she doesn't go throwing herself into dangerous situations because, you know, these pirates are pretty chillax.)

But there was still way too much that frustrated me about this book: