Early Review: Othersphere by Nina Berry
Othersphere by Nina Berry
Otherkin #3
Dez thought she knew who her mother was, who she was. Thought she had friends, a boy who loved her, and a school where she finally fit in.
But across the veil linking our world and the next lurks a monster which can annihilate. . .or liberate her. Now she must confront it there with help from one boy who loves her and one who can't stand the sight of her.
Dez thought she understood her tiger form, her deepest self. But in this treacherous place, she'll have to choose between the two halves of her soul--and determine which world survives.
Othersphere is the third and final installment in Nina Berry's acclaimed young adult Otherkin series, which blends romance, fantasy, and action in a powerful story of friendship and self-acceptance.
As I look back over OTHERSPHERE, I realize that I'm pretty torn on how I feel about it. As a book in itself, it was pretty darn good. It more than kept my attention, and had plenty of action as well as great character moments. However, as a series ending book I have to admit that rather underwhelmed to be honest. Between the wishy washness of the love triangle and how it was resolved, to the final battle that just somehow seemed too easy considering the build up, and the very abrupt way it wrapped up, I'm just left scratching my head. Granted, I read an ARC copy, and perhaps some of this, specifically that ending may be fixed/expanded on, but I just felt like there wasn't really enough closure. Or well, let me backtrack a bit, there actually is closure, it's more the build up to that closure that leaves me less than satisfied. It was like things just needed to be wrapped up, so all the ends were tied off without making sure the middles were correct, for lack of a better explanation. Granted, I will readily admit that I'm terribly hard on series ending books, but I can't help but feel like we skipped right from the appetizer to the dessert in this case, leaving me feeling only partially satisfied.
A lot of the characters seemed well, out of character in OTHERSPHERE. It's like their behaviors do not quite match up with what has been previously established. There's this incident/issue with November that seemed to come out of nowhere, and while I get that she was grieving, it still didn't sit well with me, especially when you consider how it was just glossed completely over later on. Then of course there is the love triangle issue, which franking just turned me off. I almost feel like it was put in there as a plot ploy since it just seemed out of character to me, and rather forced. I mean there were enough issues between Caleb and Dez to have more than enough tension without adding in a love triangle mess that left me feeling more than a little disconnected.
As I've said, I'm pretty hard on series ending books. I mean there's so much build up over the series, the last thing I want is for things to fizzle out. So with that in mind, I try to still go into these books with a completely open mind, and work with the knowledge that I'm going to be very hard to please. In this case I think the end result is a mix of my too harshly judging and actual problems. As I said there was too many instances of lacking middles, just a whole lot of things wrapped up without the proper build up or foundation. To make matters worse, I actually did enjoy this book, it just came with so many frustrations, that unfortunately that's largely what is coming across in this review. It's a shame, because it really is a good series, and I wish I could have largely gushed about this installment. But I guess in the end what it boils down to is whether or not I would recommend this to fans of the series. Absolutely. Everything has been building to this final installment, and while the middle meat may be lacking, the end result is definitely worth the read.
(Received a copy from the publisher)
Rating:
Pre-order
Other Reviews:
Tome Tender
Previous Books:
1. Otherkin
2. Othermoon
