"Infinite Shores", an In-Depth Review

Man am I bummed. 

Hey, been a while. Life got busy as it always does, but it had a lull and I was able to read. I figured I could start with finishing this series, as I was following the author on social media and she had just announced it was finally shipping out. (I had preordered it).

I was so excited, I couldn't contain myself. When I got the delivery email I was skipping around my house with joy. 

I got my hands on it.

I opened the book.

I read the book.

I almost DNF'ed the book.

Yup. I didn't even DNF Fourth Wing, pushed through that one with the strength of seven men. But this? This wasn't supposed to happen! I was supposed to love this book! I was supposed to be gasping between page turns, covering the bottom of the page so I didn't spoil anything for myself, crying over the delicious heartbreak it was supposed to inflict. 

Yet in reality, I was bored. With Fourth Wing, at least I was entertained by how much I disliked it. 

Everything that made the world so special and captivating in the first book felt entirely absent. It hardly felt like the same world, and that's probably because it wasn't. It was around 4 or something. One book for one of those worlds, half a book to cover the other three in split perspective chapters, and a third book back in the original world in an altered and unfamiliar state. This series felt like it bit off more than it could chew in a three book chew. 

Chew. Chew. Choke.

This series really had a lot of potential, the author truly has a beautiful writing style, and I dont really fault the author on this fall back. 

I blame the publishers! Its hard to ignore the growing trend of trilogies in the recent years, along with the fantasy/romantasy genre growing in popularity as well. I know that once you sign with a publisher, you're essentially handing over creative control and liberties of your work into the hands of someone with only corporate profit on their minds. I'm sure not all publishing staff are evil money hungry late stage capitalists, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there was some outside influence/control in the decision making with this story. The firs book was SO. GOOD. Its like watching someone complete an amazing vocal performance and then sing entirely off key the next couple of songs. Did they get ill? Were they force to fail so someone could pay their way to the number one spot? Was their family being held ransom??? What caused such a shift!

You could clearly see that this author knew how to write beautiful, well paced scenery with deep dark intrigue. So what happened, and why did I dislike it so much?

It'll probably be hard to list everything clearly, as the book itself was very ... blurry. I'm not sure if the author really knew how to ed this, or write the conflicts, the plot twists, or really anything that kept my attention or if she was strong-armed to take it a different direction. Everything that did happen in this book, like the relationship aspects, were obvious by book two. Nothing captivated me. The author told us what she was going to write through her characters, and nothing really strayed too far from that narrative. I wasn't really on the edge of my seat. 

Because the story started to feel predictable, the sacrifices and "high stake" endings really didn't do anything for me. All the decisions made in the ending of this series felt rushed together and not planned from the beginning, with long rambling paragraphs that either already explained the obvious or dived deeper into details/opinions of the characters that didn't do much to add to the plot. Felt like word filler, and I ended up skimming through a bunch of the material just to have a chance of finishing. 

All of the character growth/conclusions had sort of been hit well before the end of the last book, so i didn't really care to read for the sake of the characters. 

The plot felt rushed and half baked, like it was never intended to end this way or it was never thought about.

The material that was written felt unsubstantial and not at all captivating. 

The romances were all either 1. known/predictable since book one(Baz and Kai) or book two (Emory and Sidraius, I cant remember how to spell is name) or 2. felt incomplete/rushed (Emory and Sid). 

In my humble opinion, I didn't feel like a romance between Emory and Sid was even necessary,. They could've stayed team mates, had a platonic soulmate thing going, or literally just some sort of bond due to the duty to their people or something. Again, there just wasn't enough time to develop these two as a romantic relationship. For them to randomly start having long moments of awkward eye contact after a week of not speaking and random "damsel in distress" moments, or "angrily pinned against the wall and oh no he's hot" moments felt very out of place for Emory's character. She's never loved anybody unless she's had something to gain from it, support or validation, and she seems very down to earth and practical. To just throw in a romance at the very end despite her previous romantic habits felt unnatural.It felt like it would take a lot more to get her to actually love someone not for what comfort they may offer her, but instead it happened in a few chapters. 

It felt like there was an implication that we were supposed to mourn Emory and Sid's sacrifice at the end but I really couldn't bring myself to care. What tied her to her world anyways, the people? The people her and Sid were supposed to lead or something? I don't know, again there was just no real development or connection there for the readers I think. "Their people" were mainly just a mass of nameless and faceless bodies that were supposed to hold some sort of significance, but really couldn't. 

Personally I'm not the kind of reader that can just sit and enjoy a book where the author just kind of tells the audience the story through direct dialogue or internal thoughts from the character . If that's how the author writes, for me to enjoy it I would need some sort of unreliable narrator thing going on there. I need to be able to make guesses, not know how the plot will turn, be blindsided. I need authors to show me their stories instead of telling me their stories, and I need them to trick me. I need to be surprised, I need to be engaged. I can't just be told a story, I need to experience it for myself. It felt like I got that in the first book, the environments were beautifully described and attractive to me. I had no idea how the story would turn, what Dovermere was about, or the secrets of the school. 

In all honesty, the first book felt entirely separate from the rest of the series. 

Also, when it comes to magic systems there are typically two types, soft and hard. Soft magic systems are like LOTR, where everything is fairly unexplained and mystical. This allows you to show wonderful stories and give yourself some wiggle room as far as things happening plot wise. "There are no punishments when there are no laws." Hard magic systems are the opposite, they are usually pretty detail oriented with well explained laws and structures, think Eragon. There are rules to magic, and the characters (and author) must obey those rules or it falls apart. This series felt like a weird mix of the two, it felt very rigid and structured in the beginning, but as the story went on and had to continue explaining itself it all became very watery and vapid. It further blurs the world, you start to ask questions that never get answered and it only further leads to disinterest/frustration. 

I really cant think of much else to say other than I was often confused, gave up on understanding the magic system, bored, and only skimmed through the second half just to see how it all ended. I almost feel too sad/disappointed to continue discussing this book, and am unsure of what else to say. The author has a talent for writing as an art form, I could read it in the first book. She did an amazing job creating characters I grew attached to, and I so often wished I could be one of those students drinking warm drinks in a cardigan and scarf, walking through the campus with the smell of sea salt in the air. But in the end, I was left expecting something different than what I read, and I wish I didn't lose the world and characters given to me in book one. 

Looking back, I mourn the characters now not because of the ending of the final book, or because the series is over, but rather I mourn them when I lost them at the end of Curious Tides. Emory walked into that portal and never came back, and Baz is lost in his grief and I cant find him. 

I hope the author continues to write, and I get to fall in love with more of her books.

Feel free to share your own opinions below, and happy reading.

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