Niki's Reviews > The Deck of Omens

Comparing this series and The Raven Cycle was a more apt comparison than anyone realized: by the end, both series fell in the same "great potential, shoddy execution" pitfall, except TRC did, at least, the one thing I wanted it to do: delve deep into the characters.

I said this in one of my updates for the book but here it comes again: I had read 70% of this book and felt like I had read absolutely nothing, both character-wise and plot-wise. The plot was kickstarted a little at the end (more on this later), but the character development (as in, getting to know the characters better, not them ~changing for the better~, I don't care about that part all that much) I wanted never happened. Either the character development in the first book was better, or I just believed in its potential to develop later, because I remember being a lot more invested in them in the first book.

I definitely believed that the adults would get a little more "screentime" the second time around, but Augusta and Juniper were firmly benched (and yet we're supposed to care when they (view spoiler)[start dating again officially (hide spoiler)] by the end), and Harper's dad, despite being a founder and a pretty important part of the first book, is completely absent here. Are we supposed to believe that he wasn't involved with running the town AT ALL and just left Augusta and Juniper make all the decisions? Truth be told, they didn't make all that many decisions at all because it's the kids running the show, but you get my point.

As for the kids, there was SO MUCH we didn't get. Harper learning the truth about her powers and having to leave her family home wasn't explored at all, and don't even get me started on the laughably vague "lessons to control her powers" she was supposed to be having with Augusta and Juniper, of which we're shown ONE lesson, that never amounted to anything anyway because she learned to control them by herself. More emphasis was given in That One Passionate Make Out Scene in the Lake With Justin than anything else regarding Harper.

Of course, poor Justin was underdeveloped in the first book to begin with, and that didn't change at all here. His fall from grace in the eyes of the townspeople, when he went from being the town's Golden Boy to basically being a pariah, or his relationship with his mother and sister when his mother still treats him like he's more special than May even when SHE has the Hawthorne powers, neither is explored at all. We're just told things instead of being shown them. Also, how the hell was he able to (view spoiler)[wield the Deck of Omens to talk to the Beast near the end? Was it because he was corrupted and the corruption created some vague connection between him and the Beast, so he was suddenly given powers just because the plot demanded it? And were we supposed to feel scared about him dying or something? (hide spoiler)] Because I know I didn't.

Same goes for Violet's (view spoiler)[injuries in the fight with Ezra/ Richard, when Gabriel oh-so-conveniently pops back in the story at EXACTLY the right time to save her. (hide spoiler)] I wasn't expecting something to predictable and eyeroll-worthy, but here we are.

Violet and Isaac are probably the most well-developed characters. I liked seeing them together (except for that stupid as balls scene in the beginning, when they think it's a great idea to do that ritual with the Beast again all on their own; like hell it'd work, if it did the book would just end right there, and that was in the first 50 pages of a 350 page book) and respected their interactions.... when I thought that it was just a platonic friendship ("Finally! A friendship between a boy and a girl in a YA book, with no romantic undercurrent! Violet herself says that she mistook Isaac's human decency for romantic attention when that wasn't the case! Fucking finally!") But then, predictably, they start dating in the end. I love how the two explicitly bi characters end up in a "straight" relationship, while the lesbian relationship of Augusta and Juniper is nothing more than a footnote, and this is the series that was marketed as "a more diverse Raven Cycle".

May was alright, probably the most nuanced character in the book. I don't have anything else to say about her.

The reveal that Ezra, May and Justin's dad, was (view spoiler)[secretly an immortal founder and the Big Bad All Along? Weirdly convoluted and kind of pulled-out-of-the-author's-ass just to "defy expectations" for everyone who thought the literally named Beast was the Big Bad. Why exactly did Richard want to destroy the border between Four Paths and the Gray (or whatever it was that he wanted to do, I really couldn't be less interested in him or the predictable "big battle" with him at the end that happened offscreen) to "gain the powers of the other founders" when he HAD the powers? He was a Sullivan, and yet he had the immortality of a Saunders (he himself says it)? Seriously, I don't get it? What WAS his own power, after all? Sullivans can either destroy or heal, but all we ever see Richard do is control the corrupted trees and be immortal. I really, really think that the Richard Twist was put in the book just to have a Big Twist, but it wasn't pulled off well at all, in my opinion. (hide spoiler)]

This book would've benefited A LOT from having POV chapters for the characters instead of just third person narration.

TL;DR because I want to wrap this review up already: the characters were pretty flat, a lot of potential wasn't taken advantage of at all, and things happened just because the plot required them to happen by the end. I still mostly enjoyed the book, but I think that's mostly because I spent the entirety of it taking the scraps and hoping for more to come, that never came. I definitely enjoyed The Devouring Gray more.