Review: Terminated

Terminated by Rachel Caine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Working Stiff, the first book in the Revivalist series, was an enjoyable enough read – whilst I wasn’t crazy about it, I was excited to read more. Two Weeks’ Notice was a lot more enjoyable – I felt as though there was a lot more to the story. Terminated, sadly, was the weakest in the series. I wanted to enjoy this conclusion to the series so much, but it felt anti-climactic. I kept waiting for something to build some emotion within me, kept waiting for something big to happen, yet it never reached that point where I felt as though it was truly deserving of a four-star rating. At a push, I would give this one a three-point-five-star rating, but it is certainly the weakest of the series.

Reading the books back to back instantly had me noticing the inconsistencies in this book following on from the prior. The first chapter of this book went against the final scenes in the prior book, instantly leaving me confused. There were then inconsistencies later in the book, conflicting details, leaving me with the belief this book could have done with a better editor than it was given. Thus, you can imagine, I was let down from the very start. It appeared prior details were being ignored to ensure this story followed a set pattern.

Was this forced story enjoyable? If you’re a fan of watching characters traipse across the country, then sure, but I grew bored of it rather quickly. It followed the same formula over and over, something that became rather boring quickly: car scenes, discussion, action, near death experience, running, and back to the car to repeat in a new locale. There were slight variations, but it amounted to the same kind of scenes playing out over and over again. I kept waiting for the big fight, kept waiting for everything to come together, but it never really reached that point.

Even the scene where our big evil met her comeuppance, I wasn’t entirely happy with. It happened, then it was over. It really wasn’t what I had anticipated it to be. In fact, there was only one scene in the entire book that really hit any emotions – and even then, it was only a very small proportion of a much larger scene that was disappointing to me as a whole.

Whilst I did enjoy seeing how everything came together, and we did get answers to some of our questions, I wasn’t really content with how things played out. Things seemed to come together without there being the build-up I wanted, deus ex machina moments popping up to save the day. As I said, it was all rather anti-climactic. The ending in particular felt like a big let-down, considering how everything had been building.

Overall, this wasn’t quite the ending I had been hoping for.

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