(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
*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:
First--THE PIRATES: Even though Nielsen's pacing was good (IMO) and she kept the action and the suspense going, I was severely let down by the pirates and the thieves. For example--Jaron first encounters a band of thieves in Libeth and they're pretty much acting like pirates: pillaging, looting, murdering -- the usual pirate fare. Jaron -- being Jaron -- goes all bad-ass on them and manages to wound several of them and save a cute little girl. Fast forward a bit to when Jaron ends up back in the town he started in when he escaped the pirates five years ago. He's looking for the priest who took him in but instead finds Fink, our plucky little thief-in-training. For a while, things look promising: there's code phrases in a shady inn with an even shadier innkeeper, kidnapping, and some casual threatening. But, as it turns out, the leader of our little band of brigands, Erick, is an oddly moral guy. When he finds out some of his men were doing the aforementioned pillaging and killing, he is NOT happy. Because, deep down, Erick is a "good guy" and Jaron knows this.
Fast forward some more to the pirates. Now, the pirates are set up to be some pretty blood-thirsty guys -- after all, they were hired to kill Jaron five years ago and even helped kill his entire family with their special poison. BUT. These pirates have a code, y'all. Which includes respecting women and children, because they're innocents. (Disclaimer: I do not support violence against innocent women and children. My point is that these things are usually irrelevant to pirates.) But the entire time we see them, these pirates do not act like pirates. Sure, they're burly and stoic, but I never really felt as if Jaron was in any danger from them. They do a lot of threatening and baiting, and there's even some fights, but Jaron walks away with pretty much the same scrapes, bruises, and injuries he did when he was living with and being trained by Conner. Which leads me to...
Second--THE FIGHTING. There's a lot of action in this book. And that's cool. But there are a few climactic "fight scenes": Jaron vs. Devlin; Roden vs. Devlin; and Roden vs. Jaron. And there is very little continuity here. For example: Devlin, despite being the bad-ass pirate king who's never lost a challenge in the five years he's been king, is somehow wounded by and capitulates to, Jaron. However, Roden whirls in and kills both Devlin and Agor quite effortlessly (and, I think, several other pirates as well) and makes it look ridiculously easy. But then, Jaron WITH A BROKEN LEG, somehow manages not to get killed by Roden. Which leads me to...
Third--RODEN. This guy. I swear. While the set-up of this book was a bit flimsy (there's a second traitor! our prince isn't fit to rule -- let's have a steward! the prince relies on deceit and trickery to keep his throne!) this was the plot point that frustrated me the most -- especially because it frustrated me at the end of the first book. _The False Prince_ sets up Tobias to be the back-stabber and Roden to be the loyal one, and then subverts that, probably in an attempt to be different and surprising. But Roden's betrayal fell flat for me; he and Jaron seemed to have a genuine bond which made his betrayal and anger at the end of the book so annoying. I mean, one lackey (Cregan) couldn't have THAT much of an influence. So, in Book 2, he's still running around all emo and angry at the world, seeking vengeance for his being wronged. (Which, Jaron does point out, he wasn't; he just has to accept that since Sage was Jaron, he (Roden) never really had a claim.) And in the face of this teenage-emo-angst, Jaron's master plan seems to have been to get Roden back (at least that's what I understood from his decision to use his old alias, Sage). Which he does -- all while having a BROKEN LEG.
No, seriously. Roden imprisons Jaron by chaining him up (Jaron has already made a plot point out of being able to get out of knotted ropes) and, after one of his lackeys points out that Jaron could get through a window if he got free, Roden breaks his leg. (Not to sound like a sadist, but I liked that part. It's like Roden read a few chapters out of the Evil Overlord Handbook and knew that if you imprison someone, make damn well sure they can't escape.) But guess what. Jaron DOES. He gets a splint, but even then he shimmies out of a window (good thing he's been so stressed with ruling a kingdom and doesn't have much of an appetite) and manages to scale a sheer rock cliff and challenge Roden to a fight. And wouldn't you know, Jaron wins. Mainly due to appeals to Roden's good nature, their friendship, and promises of a captainship of the guard, but still. So Roden surrenders, Jaron becomes the Pirate King too, and the pirates, while they don't like it, respect him. Because pirates are known for their respect.
*sigh*
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