Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

I'm conflicted.   There are good elements to this story, no doubt, but the pacing just dragged for me.   And I didn't really see the Raffe attraction.   While the writing was competent, even lovely at times, there was just enough awkwardness and typos to distract me.   But few enough that I was willing to overlook them if not for the pacing, which made otherwise minor flaws stand out to me. 

Penryn isn't really a Mary Sue, although I was kinda rolling my eyes at how her life just keep sucking more and more.   There's a sucky life, and there's piling it on - and it was pretty much obvious to me that it was piled on as a plot device.   That is, I don't think Raffe would have been attracted to her as much without all her sucky life elements.   While, yes, it's made out that she can survive because she's learned to in order to take care of her family, I can't help but think that this was also all orchestrated so she can have that love/hate relationship with Raffe.   Honestly, either her mother or her sister's disability and her loyalty to her family would have accounted for her surviving.   Or, maybe just her survival instinct.   

It's a catch-22.   A lot of the stuff was necessary to the story as written, but as written it seemed contrived to me.   But the pieces of the mystery all fit into place.   I'm sort of left with the same feeling as after seeing the end of Lost.   Yes, everything fit together, but in a way that left me rolling my eyes and feeling unsatisfied.   Then again, I think this might have suffered from the same problem that Lost had.   Much like Lost built its own hype, only to not be able to live up to it, I think I've heard how awesome this book is so often that my expectations were unrealistically high.   And so my rating of this book may change from 2.5 stars to higher if I re-read or change my mind, but for now?   For now, I'm just left a little like... eh.   

What's a shame is that the ending is so amazing.   It's not until the last fifty or so pages that it seems like everything - just how twisted this really was, for example - came into play.   Honestly, if you got there sooner?   I'd have given this a much higher rating.   And I really, really hate to say this, but I really feel like this could use a story editor.   The pacing is just dead at times, and then goes into hyperdrive, and then gets slow as molasses again.   

There are some good ideas that come into play earlier.   Like the angel swords; I like what she did with those, and felt I hadn't seen it in play combined with the angel factor before.   (Although I have seen the idea done before in other mythologies; it was the combination of the two ideas that made it stand out to me.)

I had a really, really, really hard time finishing this book.   Then again, I'm glad Susan Ee has had the success she's had.   She, at least, has the basics of the English language down.