The Rising by Kelley Armstrong

A Spoiler Free Review

I honestly found The Rising to be alright. There was a lot crammed into the last third of the book. The first third kind of felt like flailing and the middle was much more active than I think I was expecting. There’s a lot going on in this book. The last third basically serves as a coda for both the Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising trilogies. So yeah, lots going on.

Not sure how I feel about Ash. He largely just comes across as bratty and much younger than Maya and the others. And, with the introductions of Ash, welcome to a lesson in racism from a white author out of the mouth of her Native character. Not that this conversation shouldn’t be had, and often, just, uh, feels a little weird to me… the also white person. As I’m thinking about it (I write these reviews over time and not usually all at once), it would also be odd to NOT encounter racism at all. I honestly think Armstrong does a good job tackling the issue.

I am very glad the Interracial Council and Lucas got brought up here. Heck, I breathed a sigh of relief when Sean Nast showed up. Of all the Cabal people who could have wound up in charge of the Genesis and Phoenix kids, Sean was the top of the list for the ideal person to handle them.

Well Derek’s definitely coming across as more of an ass than he probably needs to be. Not that I didn’t think he was to begin with, but still… Getting these two groups together would probably have excited me if I were younger, but now it’s just like… ya’ll are all waaaay too pigheaded to be any type of real help to each other. Not how it turns out, but those were the initial thoughts. I think Kit being there definitely helped smooth things over between the groups.

Okay first, the ending of this book and this series feel rushed. Second, polyamory is a thing that ought to be considered whenever a love triangle is brought to light. You have more options than monogamy, even as a teenager. Work that shit out. And of course Maya does work that shit out and in a much less dramatic way that I was thinking it was going to go, so I’ll just let all this stuff lie. Definitely wasn’t counting on Armstrong to go the polyamory route. I do also want to say that there’s a paragraph toward the end talking about the dating pool needing to be wider and… just ugh. Why’s everyone always have to be super focused on dating? Romance is not and should not be the end-all, be-all for anyone, period. End mini-rant.