The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clark

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can't believe Goodreads ate another review of mine! This sucks! I guess this is an opportunity to better clarify my thoughts this time.

I was very excited about reading this book, and I snatched it off the library shelf. I have a fixation on assassin main characters (don't you judge me!). I also liked the idea that the heroine might fall in love with her would be assassin and vice versa (no judging!). Unfortunately, I was disappointed with this book. I'll try to start with the positives and then go to the negatives, because that seems fitting.

What I liked:

Ananna was an interesting lead character. I loved how distinctive her background as the daughter of pirates was. The author kept her characterization true to her origins. Her narration was uneducated sounding and her actions and beliefs showed the ethics of a person who was raised on a pirate ship. She was believably down to earth, and I liked that while she could hold her own and was a capable fighter, she wasn't amorally bloodthirsty.

The background on the pirate factions was intriguing. I also liked the magical aspects of this book, although they could have been better described.

What I didn't like:

Naji's characterization palled in comparison to Ananna. While this was a 1st person point of view, that didn't necessarily have to result in such an obvious lack in definition that his character had. He felt more like a background character, which doesn't work for this story, due to the intimate connection they share.

Speaking of, I think the curse could have been better described. I understand the author was trying to keep some suspense about why Naji had to protect Ananna, but it wasn't very well explained. Also Naji's magic was cool enough for me to want more explication.

I think the plotting could have been better. The beginning was catchy and I was sucked in, but around the last third of the book, I started losing interest. I couldn't decide where she was going with the story, but I didn't really care after a point. I just wanted to finish the book.

The magical aspects had a lot of potential, but after a while the different magical factions sort of ran together and lost distinction for me. I couldn't understand where she was going with the story overall.

Speaking off, I am heartily sick of cliffhangers. I think it's a dirty cheat to write a story that ends abruptly, just so people will keep reading. There are rare circumstances where a cliffhanger makes sense, or if the book is just really long. This was not the case in either way with this book. I truly believe the book could have been longer and the story could have been wrapped up to a satisfying conclusion without sacrificing tension for a series. When it ended, I was like, "What the What?!" like Finn on Adventure Time. Not cool! I don't want to turn this into a rantview, so I'll leave it at that.

While I don't regret reading this book, I wasn't satisfied with it overall. There were enough things I liked to propel me to read the second book in the series from my library. I hope that the character and story development are improved in the forthcoming books, since it has a lot of potential.



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