Beware of the spoilers to Strange Angels and Betrayals that lurk beyond this message...
Dru might finally be safe from the people who have been hunting for her. She is in the largest Schola in the country and she’s finally learning what it means to be a svetocha. After all, she is a combination of human and vampire that is extremely deadly to other vampires. If she completes her training in one piece she will be able to join the Order and keep the ignorant normal people safe from vampires. Unfortunately for Dru, a web of betrayal and lies is closing around her, just when she thinks that she is safe. Everyone around her is acting weird from her almost boyfriend to her mentor, even her bodyguards seem to be on edge. There is a traitor in the Order and they want Dru dead, but before they kill her the traitor also wants to know what she remembers of her mother’s death. But she doesn’t want to remember any of it but she has to if she wants to save the people that she cares about. Will Dru be able to take the pain of remembering the past and manage to save the people she cares about?
Once again, this is my second time reading this and just like the earlier books I did not remember much of anything from this book except for a couple of small details. Even as I continued to read through the book, I never had an “aha!” moment where I suddenly knew what was going to happen next. So this review is as good as me reading this book for the first time.
The first thing that I want to say about this book is “Finally!” After two books of questions upon questions being raised, Dru and the readers being kept in the dark, and crazy action, we are finally given a book with some answers. My favorite thing about this book was the fact that there are answers to the mysteries. It was such a relief to read this book and clear some of the confusion that was swirling around in my head. If this book had been another book filled with mystery, I would have probably ripped the hair out of my head in frustration and anger. Not only was it perfectly timed, there was a sense of things clicking into place. The world that Lili St. Crow had been building was becoming clearer and more structured. I would have honestly quit reading this series if it hadn't been for this change in pace.
Due to the fact that Jealousy was more informational when compared to Strange Angels or Betrayals, the pace of the book was also much slower. In the previous books, the plot was driven by all the things that were happening to Dru one after another. In this book the plot was driven by the things that our crew but specifically Dru is learning. The plot was just as amazing as Strange Angels and Betrayals with the perfect ratcheting tension which led to my inability to put this book down. This book is a race to understand the motivations and wants of the characters around her rather than a constant fight for survival like the other books are. Due to this and the slower pace of the book, I feel like I was able to get a better understanding of the minor characters. They became more three-dimensional as characters rather than being just names that I read every so often. Another thing that stood out because of this change in pace was the differences in the way that Dru interacted with other characters. The development of stronger bonds with minor characters was more noticeable and frankly I welcomed it. I love being able to see characters change as the story unfolds. It is one of my favorite things in any book (when done well of course) and to see happen to multiple characters as well as the effects on their relationships with each other is a dream come true for me.
The one thing that let me down while reading this book was the fact it was predictable. I was able to predict the major twist of the book and as I mentioned earlier I did not remember anything about this book. The reason that I felt let down by the predictability is that I was completely unable to guess the twists that were present in Strange Angels and Betrayals. I don’t really understand why I was able to figure out what this twist was but I didn't figure it out for the previous two books. It’s not like I knew more about this book going into it than the other two. Since I recalled roughly the same amount of information from Strange Angels, Betrayals, and Jealousy before reading them but was only able to guess the twist in this book that means either the previous books were better in terms of their writing or this book had more foreshadowing than the other two. I wouldn’t say that Strange Angels and Betrayals have better writing than Jealousy. In my opinion the writing is pretty much the same as would be expected. That leaves the only other option which is that the twist in this book is set up quite early on and thus it is kind of obvious if you have been paying attention.
Even though the major twist of this book is predictable, the ending is not at all obvious. It is so unexpected that I still remember reading the ending of this book for the first time and being shocked. As I mentioned earlier, I only remembered a couple of small details. After reading the book I realized that those details were the ending. Due to the fact that I knew the ending of the book it didn’t shock me but the ending is what made me come back to this series and finally read it all the way through. The way this book ended literally haunted me. Out of the blue, I’d recall the ending and think, “What happened after that?” I could never remember what happened next so one day I looked it up on Goodreads and realized that I hadn’t finished reading the series. That’s how I ended up here, rereading Strange Angels, Betrayals, and Jealousy to finish reading the series once and for all.
Overall, I’m going to give this book 4 stars. It had a lot of things that I loved and really needed like answers to the bajillion questions that were floating around in my head. I loved the evolution of Dru’s relationships with all the other characters. The plot was different but it was still just as good the plot of Strange Angels and Betrayals. The only reason that Jealousy is shy of that fifth star is the twist that I was able to predict. It was just too easy and it honestly didn’t meet the standards that I had based on the two previous books. With that being said, the ending of this book has me totally ready to dive right into Defiance (the next book)! I can’t wait to finally read it after years of wondering, “What happens next?”
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