Darkness Rising Series Overview

Darkness Rising by Kelley Armstrong

A Semi-Spoilery Overview

Encompasses both Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising 

Welp, neither of these trilogies lived up to their ominous-sounding titles. I went in expecting something more in line with what Savannah went through at the end of Thirteen and it ended up being closer to the end of a CW teen school drama. Nothing remotely world-changing or even particularly dark happened in Darkest Powers or Darkness Rising. I think literally the worst things that happened were Nicole murdering Serena and the helicopter crash. I guess you could count Chloe accidentally raising an entire cemetery as “dark” but I saw that coming a mile away so it didn’t feel “dark.” None of this is to say that the trilogies were bad. They weren’t, really. A little bland at times, yes, but not bad.

I think it’s very safe to say that neither the Edison Group nor the Cabals know how to deal with people very well. It’s honestly hard to say which is worse… the circumstances are both similar and very, very different. Both were like: oooohhh, shiny experiments! Sure hope they don’t turn into PEOPLE some day. Sure hope we never have to tell them what we did to them. Oh no! We have to tell them now! Oh no! They don’t want to be under our control! Imprisonment! Murder! Just… you guys. What. The. Hell. Did. You. Think. Was. Actually. Going. To. Happen. You should have Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters that shit. Tell them the truth but make it as normal as you can! These are people, not objects. Thank the universe Sean Nast is helming their future at the end. He and Lucas Cortez were at the top of my “best case scenario Cabal people” list.

Anyway, specifically on Darkness Rising: I quite liked Maya as a protagonist. She was fairly chill through most the the trilogy. Capable in almost every scenario she’s put in. It was definitely refreshing after dealing with Chloe in Darkest Powers. I’m glad Maya did the smart thing with her love triangle, even if I would have loved to see some polyamory involved. Probably just me. But anyway, Maya was a good protagonist.

Rafe and Daniel, being Maya’s love interests/besties were the best fleshed out of the group of Project Phoenix kids. They were bother differing shades of chill boyfriend. Made a nice departure from the Dereks and Clays of the male love interest spectrum. Other than that, I don’t really have an opinions on them. They were there and supported Maya as best they could given the circumstances.

Still not sure how I feel about Ash. He kind of faded into the background once the Project Genesis kids were introduced and didn’t have much time with the Phoenix kids to get really well established. I kept envisioning a young Sam Carter from the Stargate universe whenever Sam was mentioned. Hayley was notable only because she shares a name with my bestie. Nicole for kind of the same reason (my sister’s original legal name this time), though it did help that she was psychotic so… yeah. Most of the rest of the characters were just kind of there and pretty one-note, which is completely understandable in a cast this large.

I think that’s mostly it for my thoughts on Darkness Rising. Better than Darkest Powers but mostly managing to hit the same story beats. Got your setup book, your wandering/traveling book, and your conclusion book. Not sure Darkest Powers would do well as an omnibus, but maybe a two book split instead. Not really sure.

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

A Spoiler Free Review

After reading the Darkest Powers Trilogy, The Gathering was a breath of fresh air. That said, it’s definitely more up the alley of a CW show than it is anything else. There’s just a lot of teen drama. Not especially boring but also not especially engaging, either. I won’t say I was bored at any point while I was reading, but I also don’t really remember a lot of the details.

I thought Maya was a satisfactory protagonist. She’s spunky, has an actual personality, and is grounded as a person. The other characters are honestly blurs, in my brain. I remember the secondary characters — Daniel and Rafe — of course, but most of the others… nothing interesting pops up. They’re there to fill out Maya’s world and they do that well.

It is a little interesting to have a completely outside perspective on the St. Cloud Cabal. And by outside, I mean human. Having read other books set in Armstrong’s Otherworld, I know who the St. Clouds really are, even if their aims are beyond me, and Maya, at this point in the Darkness Rising trilogy. Of course, the mention of Dr. Davidoff from the Darkest Powers trilogy made me roll my eyes. But he’s only mentioned in this book so… yeah. Not a big thing.

I’m not normally a fan of abrupt endings. In fact, I never picked up any of the Divergent series after the first one because of this. However, I’m going to continue with the Darkness Rising trilogy, mainly because I know it’s a trilogy and I like the author. But yeah, do be warned, it just ends out of nowhere.

I would also like to mention that I read the "Enhanced Edition" on Kindle. It's got a couple little short stories that sort of flesh out a couple things from the book and a yearbook section and character profiles. I probably would have eaten this up if I were younger, but... yeah. That's definitely stuff for a younger audience than my 33 yrs.