My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ stars
I really enjoyed The Dysasters, which is the first book in a new series by P.C. & Kristin Cast. In this new series, our protagonists have powers that can control the weather and four villains are hell-bent on trying to find and capture them for their own purposes. Evil and good fight against one other with the power of the elements causing both chaos and happiness. So basically, another awesome magical fantasy book which I am super excited about!
The world-building in this book took a while for me to get into (since there are some nooks and crannies in this magic system which are only revealed later on in the book) but as with every P.C. Cast book, I loved it. What I found extremely interesting was how elemental magick (which we also see in their popular House of Night series) was meshed together with scientific anomalies in this book. I would have maybe liked to have had a bit more of a detailed explanation on how exactly the "bonding" with the respective element worked, but otherwise I found it to be really intriguing and fascinating.
I did like Foster as a main character and thought she was pretty witty and a strong female lead, but my absolute favorite character would have to be Charlotte. I absolutely loved that P.C. & Kristin included a trans character in this book and were able to share her story. Charlotte was just beyond adorable and you can definitely tell that she had to go through a lot of heavy stuff in her life. But with her head held high, she powered on and stood up for the woman that she is. I definitely hope that she will play a bigger part in any subsequent books. There is a part of me that does think that Foster and Tate did have a semi insta-lovey relationship, but I do understand that the entire concept of them both being bonded to air before they were born implies that they are drawn to each other. They are however pretty cute together and I'm looking forward to seeing their relationship evolve.
My favorite aspect of this book would have to be the villains and their story. I think that P.C. & Kristin Cast are just truly phenomenal at writing complex villains. I appreciate a good villain where the motive of their evildoing is quite understandable to the reader and I feel like the Casts pulled that off brilliantly in this novel. Eve was an especially fascinating character. I'm still completely on the fence with whether she will eventually get a redemptive arc or not (I do hope so). You can definitely tell that she struggles to believe in the ideals that Dr. Rick Stewart imposes on her, yet she also does follow what is good for her despite what harm it may cause others. This is especially shown in the battle which takes place at the end of this book. I am definitely interested in seeing where this story will take her as a character.
The plot of the story is quite slow, as is usual for a Cast book but I do think that slow stories, while maybe taking a while to get into, have a way to immerse the reader and I do believe that this book does a great job at doing that. You get to be a part of the character's small conversations and experience the story as it unfolds in semi real-time.
I am definitely curious to see the direction this series will take and am definitely here for the ride.
0 Comments