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Serpent's Storm (2011)

by Amber Benson(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0441020097 (ISBN13: 9780441020096)

languge

English

genre

Paranormal Fantasy

publisher

Ace

series

Calliope Reaper-Jones

review 1: I am not sure why I continue to read this series. Maybe I have hope that it will get better because it has such an interesting concept about Death and the entire Afterlife being run as a corporation. Maybe, because of skimming the reviews, the consensus has been that the series does get better.Amber Benson has two more books to prove those reviewers right. Serpent's Storm started off well in its prologue. I believe that it was third person perspective instead of Callie's. The gist of it is that Callie's duplicitious older sister, Thalia, makes a pact with the Devil. She is from her cell in Purgatory in order for her to take over Death Inc. and for the Devil to take over the Kingdom of Heaven.Callie and the former Devil's protegé and her current boyfriend, Daniel are calle... mored to battle over the title of C.E.O. of Death after the current one is killed. Along the way, Callie loses a friend, gains an adversary, and faces an enemy from the past.Calliope Reaper-Jones is a horrible character. Just terrible! She's vapid, shallow, idiotic, and incredibly sex-crazed. It was like the publishers told Benson she needed more sex scenes and she gave it to them ten-fold. Did they at least further the story? Nope. Just killed some trees.I mentioned above that the prologue was interesting. That's because it wasn't told from Callie's point of view. It made me think that maybe I might respond more favorably to the books if I didn't have front row seats to Callie's incoherent, selfish, and whiny thoughts.I also hated the ending. A lot was going on but it never felt exciting. It was also anticlimatic. Is that really how Thalia is going to be taken out? Seriously? I felt that this was originally supposed to be a trilogy so it tried to have a no holds barred feeling to it. Some characters died, some were revealed to have ulterior motives, etc. I never fully invested in them to care about these developments.The one thing that puzzles me is that I cannot believe how many good reviews Serpent's Storm has gotten.
review 2: Either I was asleep when I read this book, or it was just truly not that great.To be honest, I was a bit surprised at the (mostly) positive reviews I read --just trying to make sure I wasn't being a jerk in not liking it-- but then I started remembering everything that was just totally not okay with the book.First of all, children can't read this book! I really enjoyed the first book in the series. I even recommended it to my best friend knowing she would like it too!There is literally not a single person I know who I could recommend this one to, and that's a shame.Plot-wise, I didn't actually even realize what was going on most of the time... (Maybe I'm too old for this kind of book?.. no.. I don't think that's it..) And I actually did fall asleep listening to it once. After a lot of drama that seemed inconsistent with Calliope's character, I admit I did check out a bit. There's also a completely, absolutely and totally inappropriate scene that is just shrugged off a bit and not addressed as the horrible thing it truly is.Don't recommend and would have been better off not reading. And I'm sorry to say that Amber Benson, because you do a fantastic job narrating your books. :) Loved the other two. Definitely won't be reading any more. less

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