#there was also alys’ line about daemon never knowing his mother which IMPLIES this daemon was younger when Alyssa died

[baelonthebrave]

I do really like their willingness to change details from canon to get the maximum bang for their buck for the much more limited word count you get in TV versus written media. in the books rhaenys claims meleys when daemon is still a little kid and wouldn’t have been able to try to claim meleys even if he wanted to. but in the show they shift it time-wise so that daemon was old enough to try, still failed, felt inferior because of it and bore a grudge against rhaenys for taking over something as intimate as his mother’s bond to her dragon. it’s effective it’s smart it’s gooddddd

[eiharb-blog]

I Love the Elite Kings Club, but... Part 2: Everything else

This week I have been reading the Elite Kings Clubs and I loved them, they are quite addictive, but at the same time I had some issues with the storylines. Surprise… surprise. It is going to be a bit of ramble. And SPOILER warning ahead, because I don’t know what I am going to write. This is going to be part 2 or 2, because it became really long. I am not trying to be mean, I promise. It is just when you have such a great story, the bad looks way worse in my brain and I am not actually hating on the series, it is more a therapy session for me after finishing the five books in two days so that I can move on for now and if you haven't gotten the idea I tend to overanalyse books and TV shows (I may overanalyze The Society in the future).

About the trigger warning in Malum P1, I think it was a good idea to have it and I fucking hate trigger warning, because I was really sad reading about that and from mbti I am a thinker, so it is difficult to make me feel for characters. The issue with the trigger was that, if someone decided to skip it, they basically had to skip the rest of the book and then what is the point of reading thus far? At the start of the book I though that, the trigger is about a very graphic scene where Tillie is beaten up by her father and that would have been a chapter and skippable, but what happened is not exactly skippable and a reader would not understand why Tillie and Nate are at their lowest. Having that in mind Malum P2, I think handles the possibility to skip parts of Malum P1 very well.

Deaths does not feel permanent, because with only one exception they always come back. The first time when we learned that Elizabeth and what’s her name were not actually dead was shocking. Then we had the Daemon’s chapter in the third book, which was believable enough when Nate and Bishop’s mother were the one’s hurt, but the moment Bishop was hurt, it became very unrealistic and I was sure that was simply happening in Daemon’s head. In Malum, then the sad thing happened (I don’t know why I am keeping this part as spoiler free, it just feels wrong to spoiled it) and I read what it happened, my reaction is “k. Everything is going to be fixed in the next chapter”, then Nate’s chapter which is basically the spoiler warning??? I was still “That doesn’t mean anything. Everything would be fine” and then it wasn’t. And then it was when her body came back to the house and the kings came and I am “see. Everything is going to be fine, they are just now going show Tillie that she is alive” and that never happened but I still keep expecting it and at the end when we learn that Daemon is alive surprise… not, I am still expecting she to be alive (I am currently reading Malum P2 at least while writing this part. I should be finished with it by the time I publish this) and before what’s her name is killed, she asks Tillie if she wants to see her mother or something in those lines and if Katsia is also alive I am so over the death scenes in this series, they don’t have consequences with the exception of one and that is bullshit. Malum P2 update: alright that was interesting way to deal with Daemon, but my point about the deaths not being permanent still stands.

The alliances between the characters is difficult to grasp. I think if we had more chapters from the kings, the plans and alliances would be executed better. One character is working with another, and the another is working with a third, but the third is working against the first one and at the end of the novel it would be like “JK, the two of us were working together the whole time, to screw over the second character actually and that was the plan from the very beginning and you did what we expected”, but instead of three characters, we have between 30 and 40 named characters.

While reading the second part of Malum, my heart is breaking for Bishop and Madison. I just want them happy. Is it too much to ask at this point? I know that people still have problems after they get their happy ever after, but at the same time as a reader I just want to know that they are functioning adults afterwards (I know that the last book is going to be about them, but I am just not fan of those). Examples of other series doing the same are (Michael and Erika from Devil’s night (that has not officially happened, but it looks like set in stone), Jared and Tate from Fall Away, and Abby and Jake from Runaway) feels cheap and milking it. The only time, I haven’t been pissed of when the starting couple has been fighting in the letter books is in Marked Men, with Shaw and Rule, because it sounded like they have problems, but old enough to try to fix them rather than sit around until it is so bad that you can only break up.

Some characters storylines don’t go anywhere unless they are revived in the future instalments. Aly (not sure if that was how it was spelled in the novel) kind of did go somewhere, but not fully. All we know is that Bishop killed her, and it is implied to be because of the video, but here really being told much more about the situation. The same goes for Madison’s fuckboy (Carter??? I really cannot remember his name and I don’t care enough), we learned that he was the one to send the video, He hated Madison for Aly’s death (then why send the video??? Beforehand) and then it is revisited again when Nate kills him because he didn’t like fuckboy and that entire plotline is dropped.

The generation’s thing does not work. In THE book, Madison reads that a new generation is every 4 years, but current generation were seniors in high school (18 year old), the previous generation are 6 year older (some character said that Saint is 24) and then the new generation are 16 during Malum, but at that point wouldn’t they already be high school? and the difference would be two years with the kings. And how exactly Madison fits in the generations? She and Daemon are twins, but Hunter is the same age is her (both being seniors in high school and for sure they were not triplets.)

Some other minor inconsistencies that bothered me, because I just hate myself. When Bishop gives Madison her car in book 3, it is a Lamborghini, and then in Malum P1, it becomes a Ferrari. And again, in Malum, Tillie talks abought Madison killing Lucan, but it was Bishop shooting him and then Madison and Brantley cut him a bit (to say it in the nicest way possible).

I struggled keeping track of all characters. I would try to list them now: Bishop, Jase, Jesse (why are you doing this to me), Katsia, Katsia 2.0, Madison, Nate, Tate, Tillie, original Katsia’s husband, Brantley, Bailey, Abel, what’s her name (the one that had feeling’s for Bishop and was sleeping with his father), Hector, Skylar, Saint, Saint 2.0 (next book that is going to be difficult), Gabriel, Elena, Joseph, Elizabeth, Lucan, Max, Cash, Phoenix, Chase, Raguel, Ace, Eli, Jonah, Hunter, Daemon, Madison’s biological mother, Micaela, Jessica, Payton, Carter??? (at this point if that’s not his name I am renaming him), then the four new gen kings, Spyder, Ollie (was it ollie the name of Nate’s cousin that he doesn’t like), Bishop’s lost boy cousin, Bailey’s hacker of a brother , Aly/Allie, Allie’s bff and that’s is almost 50 character (count them if you don’t believe me) and it feels like it is game of thrones, with the difference that these books are about three hundred pages and it is difficult to keep track of every single one of them. If it is made into a TV series, it would be amazing. I think that’s the positive note that I am going to end this with.

This is really long, and I honestly love this series, but these points really bothered me. In order to end on a positive note, Bishop, Nate and Brantley are amazing and I cannot wait to read Brantley’s story and the book of fixing Bishop and Madison (let’s hope that she would grow a few braincells for her sake). One of my favourite dynamics between character has been Nate and Madison, but I have been missing it during Malum P1, but there is one moment between the two in Malum P2 and I was there for it. As you can guess I loved Madison and Bishop and I also loved Tillie and Nate, all of them are so broken, but they somehow work.

I am not sorry about the swearing in this post, it needed to be said that way. I also know that it looks really bad, writing this long thing for a series that I love, but I recommend for everyone to read it and not listen to me.

... Until the next romance book