Apollyon
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Release: April 4th 2013
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, YA
#4 in the Covenant series
Series: Half-Blood (#1), Pure (#2), Deity (#3), Sentinel (#5)
Plot:
Fate isn’t something to mess with… and now, neither is Alex.
Alex has always feared two things: losing herself in the Awakening and being placed on the Elixir. But love has always been stronger than Fate, and Aiden St. Delphi is willing to make war on the gods—and Alex herself—to bring her back.
The gods have killed thousands and could destroy entire cities in their quest to stop Seth from taking Alex’s power and becoming the all-powerful God Killer. But breaking Alex’s connection to Seth isn’t the only problem. There are a few pesky little loopholes in the whole “an Apollyon can’t be killed” theory, and the only person who might know how to stop the destruction has been dead for centuries.
Finding their way past the barriers that guard the Underworld, searching for one soul among countless millions, and then somehow returning will be hard enough. Alex might be able to keep Seth from becoming the God Killer… or she might become the God Killer herself.
Review:
What? What the hell was this?
The plot was on vacation for the first 200 pages. Nothing happened. Nothing. This was basically Matched in disguise. Where has the awesomeness gone? And even after those 200 pages, the novel was still lacking a lot.
And where did the characters go? Alex suffered severely from Rose Hathaway syndrome in this book. She was arrogant like she was a goddess herself, whiny and bitchy, and just plain unbearable. She even said so herself: “All of the parties involved were pretty arrogant. Gods know I had a healthy dose of it myself.” And even though self-awareness is the first step to recovery, I still couldn't forgive her for it. Also, she behaved completely childish, getting all giddy when Aiden looked at her with those to-die-for silver eyes of his. It was impossible to keep eye-rolling to a minimum when there were quotes like these:
Aiden's hand wrapped more firmly around mine. “I think right now the world has bigger problems than a pure and a half being in love.”
My heart did a happy dance at the last part. Just hearing him say that — the L-word — could chase away all the dark shadows and expectations.
Speaking of which, Aiden was a freaking softie, I mean come on, Armentrout, give the boy his balls back. All he did was tell Alex how much he loved her and he will NEVER EVER give her up, like, ever. It was ridiculous. Their whole relationship was laughable. So, Aiden can put Alex on the Elixir, something she has feared her entire life and is absolutely terrified of, and afterwards Alex is just like "Oh well shit happens" and forgets about it? And even after she forgives him, Aiden is still being a crybaby about it. "No I cannot forgive myself what I did was wrong No I can't" SHUT UP. So, while she's able to be all rosy cheeks with Aiden after he did that to her, she still can't forgive Seth for using their Apollyon connection to do the exact same to her that Aiden did with the Elixir. Yeah, right. I mean come on Alex, the poor boy!
“It wouldn't have been bad between us, even if you never connected with me. It wouldn't have been terrible. But it never would've been enough. I'm man enough to admit that. Even if I fought for you fairly — and trust me, Aiden has nothing on me when I'm determined — in the end, whatever you felt for me would've been leftovers. I would've been a leftover. You would've never really been mine. I've always known that. (...) Why wouldn't I have asked [to be with you]? I'm attracted to you, Alex. Doesn't take much to figure that out. And there's more. I've been drawn to you, ever since I first saw you. It's just the way it is for our kind. That pull between us — I don't think you've ever understood, or even felt it, as much as I do. But anyway, like I said, I do care about you.”
The boy is handing you his heart and you're still being an asshat about it. Stop torturing him. Stop telling him you have to kill him. Seriously, any given time she was trying to talk Seth out of his Goddestroyer dream, it was like "Ouh, OOPS, shouldn't have said that!" Every. Time. Come on. I'm starting to see a pattern.
The only good thing about this book, the only, was Apollo. He's my new favorite character. The guy is just plain awesome, I mean seriously:
“Hermes?” Apollo hissed — actually hissed like an angry lion. “That little punk-ass bitch. I actually felt somewhat bad about stealing his helmet and melting it down.”
“Well, that's all fine and dandy,” Apollo said, letting out an exaggerated sigh.
He knows what's up. Apollo's a cool guy.
There was no pace, no structure, I saw all the plot twists coming from a thousand miles away, right down to who the real antagonist was and who was going to die; it was very predictable. The characters were just really bad. The writing was somewhat nice, though, I'll give Armentrout that, too.
But well, the whole book did provide a certain entertainment. I already said this in my review of Opal, but Armentrout is an excellent comedian and has a hand for writing smartass and witty scenes. It's really a shame that this book was such a let-down, especially since I had extremely high hopes for it and liked all the other books so far. This year is definitely not her year. We'll see if I'm going to read Sentinel. I probably will, I still haven't given up hope entirely.
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