This book was okay. This whole series was okay.
My mom and my brother's girlfriend both enjoyed this series and it seems like a majority of people did, too. I was more bored by it than anything.
I read this trilogy because my brother's girlfriend lent us A Discovery of Witches. She then told my mom that if she enjoyed that one, she would lend her the other two books in the series so she could finish the trilogy. I enjoyed that story. It wasn't one of my favorites, but I was interested in finding out more Diana and Matthew and their forbidden love. I wanted to finish the trilogy since I had already started it.
The second book was slow. Painfully slow. I didn't enjoy reading that one. My mom told me she felt the same way, but said the third book made up for the second one.
I began the third one and after the second one not very invested in the characters. I waited for the third one to pick up, but for me personally, it never did. I will now go into further detail. Possible spoilers may be revealed.
1. Point of view If I am not mistaken, A Discovery of Witches was all written from the third person point of view. The second one was written in the first person and The Book of Life was written from the first person point of view when dealing with Diana and in the third person point of view with the other characters. However, I feel that there were moments in which the author went into the first person point of view with the other characters and I was confused at times because I didn't know who was speaking.
2. Characters The author did focus on Diana and Matthew. She introduced us to other characters in the first two books and mentioned them often enough that we knew who they were by the third book. However, there were some characters that were reintroduced or mentioned for the first time since the first or second book and I could not for the life of me remember who they were. This wouldn't be so much of a problem, but after mentioning name after name and them seemingly now playing a part in one way or another it got to be bloating and confusing.
3. Secrets In the first two books, Diana and Matthew keep all their secrets to themselves. They are even reluctant to reveal some of those secrets to those closest to them. In this one, they have to reveal more in order to win the war that is going on. However, it was confusing because someone started revealing these secrets to Benjamin and other members of the congregation and they could not figure out who it was. They themselves are revealing secrets that will help boost their status in the war, yet it's bad that these secrets are falling into the wrong hands.
4. Corra Corra plays a major part in Diana's life once she is revealed in the second book. She is a part of Diana and suddenly she wants to be free to be with other familiars that may exist. She promises Diana that she can keep her strength, but she no longer wants to be a part of her. I couldn't see the purpose of this.
5. Plot The first and second book build up to this war that Diana and Matthew have to fight in order to be together as well as the purpose the book of life in the outcome of the war. The war turns out to be nothing more than speeches Diana has to do for the congregation in order to get what she wants. Everything is resolved easily. There is no real fighting involved in anything. Diana and Matthew want something, someone resists and gives in easily after a few spoken words. This was utterly disappointing.
6. Blood rage From the beginning we get the feeling that blood rage is a terrible thing to have. Vampires afflicted with blood rage turn into monsters that have no mental state about what they are doing. They can kill their loved ones and only learn about it when their fit of rage is over. Diana helps Matthew control his blood rage, but it a process that takes time and risks. Jack, their adoptive child, has it and he has one of the worst cases of it. Any small argument can set him off, yet by the end of the novel he can control it after a few months. Matthew's blood rage reemerges as bad as ever after he is tortured and again he can control it no problem a few weeks after being saved. Maybe the author is trying to say that with love and tenderness anything can be fixed, which if that's the case why didn't anyone try to show this compassion to Benjamin?
7. The book of life The book is built up from the first book as being the thing that holds all the answers as to the creation of all the creatures. The book is found, but most of the answers are found through science rather than this all powerful book. This explanation would be fine, if the book hadn't been built up to be super important.
8. Pacing This book was not as boring as the second, but especially since it was supposed to be a book about this war they were fighting in, it was rather dull.
This trilogy is not something I am going to visit again. It seems popular amongst other people, and you may enjoy it, but it was not my cup of tea.
If the author writes more stories covering the backstories of other characters, I might give that a chance. Some were more interesting than Diana and Matthew.
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