Review: Untold

Warning, there will be some spoilery spoilers if you haven’t read Unspoken!

Title: Untold

Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Publication Date: August 29th 2013

Length: 356 pages (Hardcover)

Series: The Lynburn Legacy #2

Synopsis from Goodreads:
Free from bonds, but not each other

It’s time to choose sides… On the surface, Sorry-in-the-Vale is a sleepy English town. But Kami Glass knows the truth. Sorry-in-the-Vale is full of magic. In the old days, the Lynburn family ruled with fear, terrifying the people into submission in order to kill for blood and power. Now the Lynburns are back, and Rob Lynburn is gathering sorcerers so that the town can return to the old ways.

But Rob and his followers aren’t the only sorcerers in town. A decision must be made: pay the blood sacrifice, or fight. For Kami, this means more than just choosing between good and evil. With her link to Jared Lynburn severed, she’s now free to love anyone she chooses. But who should that be?’

Review:

Before starting this review, I thought I should take you back a few weeks, about two days before an important physics test of mine….

Me: Oh man, I deserve I small break. I know! I’ll read a little bit in Untold before I continue my studies! That’s an awesome idea!

About 10 hours later (and still reading)….

Me: I’ve made a horrendous mistake.

Note to self: never attempt to combine studying with reading again. Ever.

(I probably will, though)

So yeah, other than the fact that I have no self-control to speak of, what did we learn from this little story?

We learned that this book is crazy addictive.

You cannot belive the number of times I managed to put it down…only to glance at it until I couldn’t take it any more, and picked it right back up again. I could not stop. I could not get it out of my head.

As you might recall, I absolutely adored Unspoken when I read it a couple of months ago, and Untold was no different. It still had all the same lovely ingredients: the funny and quirky characters, the original take on magic, and as you might guess, the great pace.

Like Unspoken, Untold is also written in third person, and alternates between a few different characters, this time not only Kami and Jared, but Holly and Ash (read The Night After I Lost You for god’s sake!) as well. Despite the fact that I really did enjoy reading from the PoV of the “new” characters, I honestly would have wanted a little bit more of Jared. I can see how not including him as much might have been necessary to keep the reader on suspense, though, and therefore I forgive Brennan. ;)

When it comes to said characters, I can’t deny that I’m a bit in love with all of them. Like I mentioned earlier, they’re all so funny and different, and in this book I only grew more attached. I even kind of realised just how much I liked for example Rusty and Kami’s Dad, who I didn’t really put that much thought into while reading Unspoken.

“Right,” said Rusty. “So you don’t have, ah, magic powers anymore.”

“Can you stop prefixing magic powers with ‘ah’?”

“I’m not ready to drop the prefix,” Rusty told her.

“If you like, I can switch prefixes. I’m happy to go with ‘um, magic powers’ or ‘er…magic powers.’ Whichever works best for you ladies.”

Speaking of Kami by the way, she and Jared were more adorable (and frustrating) than ever. About 90% of the book, I had this huge, silly grin on my face that refused to go away, all thanks to those two crazy kids. Kami is so great you know, just great. I want Kami to be my best friend (no offense best friends, if you’re reading this, I love you!),

“Jared Lynburn may be, in this reporter’s completely unbiased opinion, the most infuriating idiot in the land, but he was not responsible for this”

(I don’t usually read the newspaper, but I would read the hell out of it if Kami was in charge.)

“Kami concentrated on the scarecrows going by and scribbled: “Write in your notebook to avoid this awkward moment!”

Oh Kami.

If I had to say one thing I found slightly negative about this book, though, it would be that it maybe had a bit too many ups and downs, especially towards the end. About two or three times I was certain the book was over, and would leave me with a wicked cliff-hanger, only to keep going the next page, and it ended up feeling a bit messy. That might be just me, though. :)

But overall, Untold was definitely a really good sequel to a really good book, and it certainly kept the same standard as its predecessor. It was funny, exciting, and also got me thinking about things such as family and loneliness. How it can exist in many different shapes, how much we really depend on the people around us, and the importance of having someone to trust. Who would we be without the people we love for example? I definitely don’t know who I would be.

In conclusion, I absolutely love what I’ve seen from Sarah so far, and I can’t wait to continue this series.

(I’m still majorly pissed about the cover-change, though)

4.5/5 Moustaches