Rise and Divine | Lana Harper
"some of us know better than to court dangerous things we don't understand."
This book follows Daria “Dasha” Avramov and Ivy Thorn as
they rekindle their romance and work together to save Thistle Grove from
destruction. Readers were briefly introduced to the contentious dynamic between
Dasha and Ivy when Deliliah enlists their help at the end. ‘Rise & Divine’
is also extremely heavy; there are strong themes of addiction, depression,
grief and suicidal ideation.
Dasha is a devil eater who can transcend the veil (a sort of
dimension outside life). After losing both her parents, she becomes obsessed
with visiting the other side to numb her pain. She becomes addicted to the
feeling and requires intervention from her sister, stepmom and Elena Avramov.
Dasha is in recovery like any other addict who has stopped using. This obsession
is what ruins her relationship with Ivy, over which she berates herself
heavily.
Dasha was interesting but I just didn’t care about her
relationship with Ivy. She is very concerned with getting Ivy back until she
does, then her focus goes elsewhere. The reconciliation between them happens
very quickly and doesn’t feel earned– it seems like they go from having
extremely little to no contact with each other to a very steamy reunion. I
felt we were missing the critical foundation of their relationship. I didn’t
feel as invested in them as a couple as I have to previous pairings. They also
get physical quickly, partly because of extenuating circumstances, but still. I
think their second chance romance had a lot of potential, but overall, it felt
unfinished.
However, I felt that the chemistry between Dasha and Chernobog
was given more attention. I do understand that Dasha’s being attracted to him
was a metaphor for suicidal ideation, but I was disappointed with how much it
distracted from the central romance. It was a really interesting concept, but
the characters (particularly the antagonist) aren't given enough room to
breathe. It would've been nice to get additional interactions between the
protagonist and antagonist, instead of extensive descriptions of every single
character's physical appearance.
Also, every single plot line was predictable, and
infuriating. Maybe I’m just tired of young people hiding really important
things from elders. It’s one thing if they are 13 year olds, but 28 year olds
should know to seek the advice from elders when there is serious evil afoot. I
desperately needed some reasonable adult choices. e.g., when an unknown
type of magical threat appears - with warning, which the entire town ignores -
and then another anomaly happens, don’t keep it to yourself instead of telling
everyone that might help or need to know!
I was also bored with endless pages of psychological
blathering and analysis of childhoods and feelings and motivations.
This was a terrible ending to a series, but the books had
been going downhill for a while. It’s honestly just forgettable slop. I am so
happy to be done with this universe and quite certainly with this writer. Just…
so done.
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