Tuesday 24 September 2013

[REVIEW] The Final Act by J.S. Taylor

The Final Act by J.S. Taylor
Published: August 2013
Age Group: (18A - MATURE CONTENT)
Series: Spotlight #4 [end]
The first thing that I thought when I saw this book was released (and existed): WHAT THE FUDGE??? THERE'S ANOTHER ONE???
I honestly thought that the story ended with the last one "The Director's Cut" but then there's book 4. Okay that does make sense with the title and everything but honestly I had figured with that disastrous third volume there wouldn't be another.

Well I don't like leaving a series unfinished and so I gave it a shot. It was good...not great.

The story starts out where the last one ended. And that's the usual case with sequels so no big surprise there. Now part way through reading I started thinking about what the plot of this story could be. What can they continue after everything's already been settled with in the prior books? Well I spoke too soon, because lo and behold, THE LIPSTICK STALKER RETURNS! Now I personally believe that the lipstick stalker arc is probably one of the best twists I've read. So after reading the second book and fully appreciating all the drama in it, I found the third book to be lacking, greatly. And in some way I'm starting to think that perhaps this story line was brought back because it was the ONLY thing interesting about this series. I know I'm being particularly harsh about this but I'm being honest in judging it and saying that I personally don't think there needed to be four instalments. Three would have been enough, but here I am reviewing the fourth book.

So all's good in Issy and James town. Until the end which is always the case. End a book with a bang and all that.  I'm not particularly happy with the twist. Mainly because it seemed like the author only really focused and developed the character in this book. I think if we were introduced to this character and this character was brought up periodically throughout the series the surprise may have been more of, perhaps an obvious choice, but yet again by focusing on this one character in this novel it also made them the obvious choice. Take my rantings with a grain of salt but it seemed slightly obvious who the villain is. When I first read it though, I'll admit that I was confused about who this character was, mainly because after I was introduced this character I quickly disregarded them as anyone important and went on reading about Issy and James' relationship. Now this may be signs of a very good book twist but I found it to be too much of a surprise. I'd rather have something lead up to it and I'm anxiously waiting to figure out the answer and solve the mystery. Whereas this was more of a "BOO Guess who I am" moment.

There's not much else to say about this book. It was happy ending, albeit a little cliché in my opinion and overall an okay series. Not the best and not the worst. Just a fun read.

3.5 - 4
MEH

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