Review: New World Order - Elle Casey

New World Order
Elle Casey
Series: War of the Fae, #4
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Word Rating: A-
On Goodreads

Well I finished! I deviated for a couple of weeks, but I finally finished Elle Casey's War of the Fae series, and it was . . . well . . .  really really awesome, and then really, really confusing.

One of my favorite parts of this novel is that the comedy and word choice are consistent with the past books: utterly spectacular. Casey remains critically aware of when to insert humor and how to express character interactions. Quality work. (I won't waste more time on it, if you want detail and references to Tom Hiddleston, refer to my reviews on the other novels in this series, such as here.)

Good Thing: Remember how, in the first books, trees were dangerous? Don't hug trees? Yeah just don't screw with a Pixie. Especially Pixies named Tim. Especially Pixies named Tim who is still angry at being locked away with "a hungry incubus during all the good parts." Tim and Jayne were so good in the last novel, and they remain that way. (By this I mean, Tim steals the show, man.)

Mostly because of a Bad Thing: Jayne is mostly consistent with past Jayne except that she starts to become stressed out and that's understandable but that stress turns into terrible amounts of b-wording all over her fellow people.

Confusing Thing: Wait the enemies are Demons? Not the Dark Fae? What? Chase is a what? JANE CHOOSES WHO? Spoiler alert (not really), it's not Spike. Or Chase.

Remember Ben? In the last book, I mentioned his 'kill you, love you' attitude and his mentality was a nice way to show that magical societies contain unstable people. And in this book, this wonderfully minor character becomes a major point. IN THE LAST 10 PERCENT OF THE NOVEL, MIND YOU.
"I've been watching over you for a year," he says to Jayne. And their courtship in the last bits of the novel just freak me out. They get to know each other well enough, I suppose . . . and then they get married.

What I loved about the first book was the lack of love nonsense. What I hate about this book is the overflowing love nonsense. I'm sort of glad that Jayne didn't end up with either of the guys, though she does spend a hell of a lot of the novel drooling over Spike and being confused about Chase, but I'm angry. I feel cheated that Chase is revealed to be this transcendent creature and above Jayne's love and Ben is just thrown in there. If a love triangle is constructed, trite as it is, can't I have some kind of resolution to it? Objectively, this seems like a potent way to end the series. Jayne ends up choosing Ben because it's the right thing to do for the world. But Jayne really didn't have as much choice as I'd have liked for her, because if she hadn't ended up with Ben, the security of the world would be compromised. I'm torn between loving the fact that a relationship is formed out of mutual need rather than unintelligible lusty romance and hating the fact that it was introduced so late, as a deus ex for the romance problem.

That ending was just . . . I don't even . . . what happened? It was very well written, in proper Casey style: ending right at the peak of the crescendo.

I know that I might be giving you, my dearest reader, a terrible impression of this novel. But though I have had a lot of complaints, read this book. It's extremely worth it, redeemed by its construction, comedy, character set . . . basically everything that made the past few books great. The novel will trick you a bit: a few things will start to change and you'll be discouraged (these are the real spoilers), but don't worry! Push through! This book is still worth it!

- Marlon

Love Triangles? Yay or Nay?

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