(I've changed the design of this blog again. Now the rain thing acctually makes sense.)
So I just finished reading the 'Evil Genius' series by Cathrine Jinks.
It's really good. I was hooked on the first book. It was amazing.
SPOILER ALERT
So it's about this boy named Cadel who is a genius computer hacker guy enrolled in an evil college, being trained to do bad things. The first book is really good, and the whole series is full of the craziest plot twists. And even though the plot twists are extreme, the way they are presented is great. It completely works. There is so much....I don't want to say drama, but.....I guess so much mysery? So much mystery, and it's a really gripping series.
The second book changes the atmosphere (Not of plot twists and mystery) when he changes sides. In the first book, he's sort of bad. He plays for the bad guys and is really stuck up. He is trained to think that he is superior to everyone because of his mental ability. He sort of falls for this girl that he meets online (under a fake name) and really befriends her. She turns out to be disabled, with cerebral palsy (That discovery made me so sad, because he had tricked her) and she shows him the good way to think. By the end of the book, he turns around, and realises that his so called 'friends' are really awful, and....yeah. They're all murderers and such, and he realises that he's not comfortable with that.
So in the second book, he joins a group of kids working to take the one villian (Prosper English) down. Two new charecters are introduced, and they end up adopting him at the end of the book.
In the third book, there is a lot of craziness. He finally has a happy life with his new parents and friends, but Propser English keeps appearing to hurt him and his loved ones. He wants to protect them and sort of goes back to his old ways. In order to get away, he uses forged passports, steals a plane tickets, and does a lot of pretty risky stuff. He ends up working for the police most of the book, and.....the ending is odd.
Every book ends sort of the same way. There is a HUGE dramatic climax near the end, involving Prosper English (With a gun, popping out of no where, surprising everyone) and police. In the third book, everyone seems a little crazy. The bad guy is getting a little insane, Cadel going a little crazy, stakes are high, etc, etc.
It's really hard to sumerize this series. The atmosphere changes. Like, how in Harry potter, the first books have this really innocent "we are little kids" sort of air, and by the 7th book, it's suddently REALLY dramatic. It's like that in this series too, but in a different way.
I could also compare it to 'The Hunger Games'. Each book is different, a whole different major problem, with sort of the same basic problem intertwined (Well, I guess that goes for all series) and while the first book is mainly it's own personal issue, the last book gets into the HUGE MAJOR continuous thing, with the bad guy and everything. Some people have said that the ending of the hunger games is bad. I feel like it was a little cut off, and that it definatly could have been expanded. The third book, Genius wars, is just like that. The ending just cuts off.
It sounds like the ending is the middle of the chapter. It's not even the end of a chapter. It feels like the author just randomly stopped writing. Sure, the bad guy is gone, and the hero returns home, but he is still facing mental stress. He has been arguing one point (That Prosper English isn't all that bad) for the duration of the 2nd and 3rd books. He never reaches a conclusion for that thought. It could be wrapped up to say that he starts to believe that Prosper is a bad guy, or it could say that he still believes he is, and one of his friends agrees with his.
But the ending is that he has his idea of Prosper, and no one agrees with him. They all sympasize (How do you spell that) with him and pity him, but they DON'T BELIEVE HIM! The book ends with him crying over his internal turmoil. It feels really cut off.
Another thing is the charecter of Sonja. Sonja is his friend from the first book with Carebral Palsy. He cares SO DEEPLY for her. They're best friends, and he never wraps things up with her. He doesn't even talk to her in the ending, even though she is RIGHT THERE. He should at least apologize, or kiss her (He says he wants too (As a friend, I believe) but that there are 'too many people around'), or even talk to her, ask her how she is feeling, tell her how he cares for her. But no, he just ignores her!
Sonja has had a crush on him forever. He thinks of her as a friend, and doesn't really seems to care that she feels that way about him. That is especially annoying, seeing as the series ends without any wrap up of that. I feel like the should have a mutual feeling towards eachother, wheather it be friendship or love (Even though he is only 15, and should wait a year before dating).
Cadel (That's the main charecter's name, FYI) does not seem to have any charecter growth. Sure, he learns right from wrong, but by the end of the 3rd book, he still blames himself and sticks to his own way of thinking.
On a better note, i love the charecter of Cadel. He graduates from highschool at the age of 13, and is adorable. He is described as looking really really young, almost feminine, or like a child. He has curly chestnut hair, and big blue eyes. I personally think that he sounds gorgeous. And i can see his point of view for the most part too. I love his charecter design, but I still think more things could have been wrapped up in the ending.
Another point of interest is Gazo. This charecter is sort of...used by Cadel in the first book, (He's not the smartest, but he has a great personality) and for most of the third book too, as Cadel suffers a relapse of his old, controling personality. Even though he manipulates Gazo, he NEVER APOLOGIZES. He seems to drown in apologies for others, like his adoptive father, but he never once considers Gazo. In fact, He and Gazo don't even really talk at the end at all!
I also feel as though the ending had a lot of loose ends. I may just not be getting it all (There is a LOT of informations shoved in these books), but some things i feel were not wrapped up very well. The ending of the last book is also fairly frayed. Did Prosper save Cadel? Is Cadel just deluded? I think if that one question had beed answered, that the ending would have been a lot more resolute.
For example, if we KNEW for certain that Cadel was saved by Prosper, then we could agree that Cadel is in the right. If there is still that uncertainty, then we never can tell if he is just misguided.
I personally think that Cadel was rescued by Prosper, and that Cadel is right. But as I've said before (Sorry for the repitition), no one agrees with him! You can't come up with a resolution, unless there is some agreement among the charecters!
Okay. So I feel like I'm stressing the parts of the book that I don't like.
Please don't take this the wrong way. The series is AMAZING (I mean, the charecters could have cleaner language) and it's extremely deep. I don't want my opinion of the end to stop anyone else from reading the series. The first book, for example is FANTASTIC.
And if there ever turns out to be a 4th book that wraps up the confusion at the end, then I'm sure that everything will be great. The series is amazing.
Okay. This is a sort of awkward way to end this post, but bye.
(Gosh, I feel so bad. I don't want this to be a bad review, I really don't!)
'Evil Genius', 'Genius Squad', and 'The Genius Wars' (c) Catherine Jinks
'Harry Potter' (c) J. K. Rowling
'The Hunger Games' (c) Suzanne Collins
