Feb 8, 2013

Review--Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love.

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.



WARNING SPOILERS FROM ONYX WILL BE IN THIS REVIEW, PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

OH MY GOD! I just finished Opal,--or really finished it yesterday but due to busyness couldn't post til today--Jennifer Armentrout's third book in the Lux series and I am now dying the reader's death. I've had several of them. My question to pose to authors and the world in general is, why is it always book 3 when the plot truly truly thickens and leaves you with the worst case of cliffhanger-itis ever?

I knew one was coming too. Not from reviews, but from hints from Jennifer. There was a line that kept getting repeated a bit towards the end before the big action scene. It was repeated a lot and I was like, oh crap. Then Katy even comments on how something "sucked more than a brutal cliffhanger ending." Yeah. And this one was beyond brutal!! I so should have seen this coming, but I wanted to live in my own delusions for a bit, but it didn't last long at all.

Now that that bemoaning is through, I'll move onto the review. Things were definitely awesome for Katy and Daemon in this one. Now that Katy has finally admitted to herself and Daemon of her feelings for him and she knows that his are true for her, they try to do the normal "date" thing. And OMG, I so want my own Daemon because he is truly friggin amazing! High quality boyfriend material,--alien business aside--this is so why I shouldn't read as much as I do. No real guy will ever be Daemon quality, at least I don't think so. But there's hardly time for Katy and Daemon time what with all that's happening.

Dawson has returned, Daemon and Dee's long lost brother, believed to be dead. And while the reunion should be joyous, and is at times, there's still so many more problems ahead for the group. First off, Dee is still distraught over losing Adam and her and Katy's friendship is suffering big time. Katy struggles to mend the fences between them, but it's not going to be easy. Worse yet, kids at school are disappearing. It started with Simon, but then suddenly, someone else goes missing.

And then, the spit really hits the fan when Biff...er, Blake returns. Yeah, had me a Daemon moment. Sigh...

Blake returns and it's not because of suicidal tendencies or a death wish. He has come to do what he does best. Blackmail. He makes a plan with Daemon and Katy that they, along with the others, are going to break his friend Chris and Beth out of the Daledus stronghold. But their frst attempt goes horribly wrong when they realized the place is heavily warded with onyx. After the botched attempt, the gang tries to build up resistance to the onyx in order to make their next attempt more successful.

I am still reeling as I write this review. I knew I should've waited til book 4, but I couldn't resist going back to this world and the awesome-ness that is truly Daemon. (He would so love to hear that!) No one really trusts Blake at this point, with good reason. So loved Dee's way of "greeting" him! Blake is definitely a hard character to like or trust, but because he is so evil, vile and despicable, you know that Jennifer wrote his character very good! I for one didn't want to trust Blake this time around either, but he gave Katy and Daemon no choice. And he does some pretty down right creepy things too in this one.

Back to Katy and Daemon, because yeah, kind of love those guys! Daemon is still his funny and oh-so-witty self, but he's seriously like the best boyfriend ever. True, he can be overprotective of Katy still, but she's not afraid to tell him to can it and let her do whatever it is he tries to prevent her from doing. He also does the most incredibly sweetest things for her. Totally envy this fictional girl for her boyfriend. That's pretty sad in more ways than one, but moving on. So yes, Daemon made me melt with the things he did for Katy. And I do truly love Katy's character too. She doesn't annoy me nearly at all, I just occasionally disagree with a decision or two, but her feelings are relatable, to me at least. I've never really felt so connected to a character before either, because as I've said, I see some of myself in Katy.

A lot of good stuff happens in this one! And I cannot share hardly any of it, since it's so spoilerly. But oh man, I am dying to read the next one. Like now. Or yesterday. Or at this time of writing the review, like 30 minutes ago! The characters definitely take you by surprise in this one. Especially some of our side characters. And there's the introduction of a new one, Luc. A 15 year-old who's like Katy and Blake with the superpowers thing. He's interesting and I cannot figure out just yet if we'll see more of him. It's quite possible.

The ending, oh dear freak, the ending was a total Roswell moment for me! I won't say which episode or anything like that, but it so so so so was a Roswell moment!! With its own twists of course! But dear god!! Seriously! And the worst part is that there is the waiting! The oh-so-freaking-long waiting for the next book. If you're reading this series now, with the first two books, or plan to start them, then please-please for your own sanity heed my words: wait til the fourth book is out to read book 3. Trust me, you will not regret it. I am regretting it a tad because now I am in the waiting period and I hate waiting.

There's no question now that this series is my favorite JLA one! I love her Covenant series and read that before I began this one, and I still love it. But yeah, the Lux books definitely take first place. No questions asked. This is truly an incredibly-amazing-oh-so-over-the-top-superb series that I cannot even begin to highly recommend it over and over again! It's the book blogger in me, totally enjoying reading a book about a book blogger who gets a freaking hot alien boyfriend!


And now I will share a quote that had me biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud in the office:

"Daemon snatched the yellow packages from my hands. 'Oh! Books! You have books!'

I laughed as several people waiting in line looked over their shoulders. 'Hand them over.'

He clutched them to his chest making moony eyes. 'My life is now complete.'" --Pretty much my feelings when getting books in the mail, say like an ARC of the next Lux book? ;)


Overall rating 5/5 stars



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