Summary:
With power comes enemies. Lots of them.
Hunter Garrity just wants to be left alone. He’s learned the hard way that his unusual abilities come at a price. And he can’t seem to afford any allies.
He’s up to his neck in hostiles. His grandfather, spoiling for a fight. The Merrick brothers, who think he ratted them out. Calla, the scheming psycho who wants to use him as bait.
Then there’s Kate Sullivan, the new girl at school. She’s not hostile. She’s bold. Funny. Hot. But she’s got an agenda, too.
With supposedly secret powers rippling to the surface everywhere around him, Hunter knows something ugly is about to go down. But finding out what means he’ll have to find someone he can trust.
This book is all about Hunter, and Kate.
While I still kind of don't like or care much about his character, I did like learning more about his past.
He still kind of uses people, and doesn't exactly know how to make friends. Sure in the first book he was brimming with confidence when it came to Becca, but that was kind of only so he could learn more about the Merricks, and with Gabriel it was partially so he could get back in the good graces with the Guides.
The way this story is told, the author wants you to feel really bad for Hunter, but the only time I really did was when his Grandfather was being an asshole to him. Everything else, he earned from being untrustworthy. And the one person that might have been able to to get the Merricks to give him a chance was still getting over the way he used her, Becca.
Kate is a fifth too, but unlike Hunter, she's been trained for most her life to be a Guide. She is an odd character. I never really knew how to feel about her. On one side it is nice to read about such a strong and confident character, until we find out that it's mostly an act. She is worse than Hunter when it comes to using people. But it only makes matters worse that her "partner" of sorts, Silver, is also using her as bait for the Merrick's. Silver is almost forcing Kate to whore herself out to the Merrick's to get them to show their hand. He doesn't seem to care one way or another if they are guilty of anything. Actually it almost becomes abundantly clear that he knows they are innocent of any wrong doing.
One thing that I can say that I really liked about his book was, it brought the story back to the Guides and the Elemental aspect of the series. The last two books kind of lost sight of that part of the stories. In the end, I did kind of like this book, but I still don't really like Hunter that much.
I was the opposite of you, I felt bad for Hunter throughout the entire story. While he did bring some things upon himself other things he did not. It was explained in the first book why he had so many troubles since he is a fifth but it seemed like fate wanted to toss it on him all at once which would be hard for an adult to deal with let alone a teenage boy trying to figure things out without the support of his family and friends.
ReplyDeleteI could not stand Kate, I thought right away something was wrong with her supposed tough girl style.
I actually liked Silver, loyal to his cause no matter what which is what I imagine a real guide would be like. Hunter was never trained and the other two guides in the series had a different agenda.
I did read Hunter's novella which gave some insight into how his life was when his father and uncle were alive. Reading that did help me see how and why he acted the way he did in Spirit.
~N