24 September 2011

Book Review: Ballad: A Gathering Faerie (Books of Faerie #2)

Ballad: A Gathering Faerie (Books of Faerie #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

Format: Paperback
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 5th May 2011
Pages: 336
Main Characters: James and Nuala
Date Started: 5th September 2011
Date Finished: 11th September 2011
Rating Given: *

Goodreads:

In this mesmerizing sequel to "Lament", music prodigy James Morgan has joined his best friend, Deirdre, at a private conservatory for musicians. James' almost unearthly gift for music has attracted the dangerous attentions of Nuala, a soul-snatching faerie muse who fosters and feeds on the creative energies of exceptional humans until they die. Composing beautiful music together leads James and Nuala down an unexpected road of mutual admiration ...and love. Haunted by a vision of raging fire and death, James realizes that Deirdre and Nuala are being hunted by the Fey and plunges into a soulscorching battle with the Queen of the Fey to save their lives.

After reading the Shiver series I was excited to read what Maggie Stiefvater could offer me. I read the first one in this series Lament and thought it was good not as good as Shiver but still not bad but then I read this book...
The reason for giving this book only one star was because I really didn't like it at all from start to finish. When I first started it I knew I wasn't going to like it and usually I am proven wrong but in this case I was proved right. I couldn't stand the main characters James and Nuala. James I found was just plain annoying and arrogant and I just didn't understand why anyone would fall in love with this guy, I never warmed to him which I usually do so I was very surprised that I actually hated him. As for Nuala I just didn't get who she was about until right at the end and I still didn't like her. In this book Deidre was a side character (who was the main character in the first book Lament) and she was just as annoying as the main characters I liked her in Linger but in this one I just didn't care what was going to happen to her. There was some other side characters which I actually liked and wished there was more about them especially Paul and Sullivan.
I loved the way it was about the music as it was very intriguing just like the first one and it was written beautifully and I would have probably liked this book more if the characters was more lovable.
I hated the ending as well as I was just starting to get into it and then it was ended in that way which left more answers than questions and there doesn't seem to another book in this series that I can tell I hope there is just for the readers who love this book so that they can get the ending that they deserve but I don't think I would read it as I wasn't a huge lover of the first one and then not to like this one I would just think reading another would be a waste of my time.