Review: Illusion

Title:  Illusion 
Series:  The Chronicles of Nick #5
Author:  Sherrilyn Kenyon
Age Group:  Young Adult
Publication Date:  April 1, 2014 by St. Martin's Griffin
Source:  Bought 

Be careful what you wish for…

You just might get it.

Nick Gautier is tired of his destiny. He doesn’t want to be the son of a demon who’s fated to end the world. Nor does he want to see another demon or other preternatural creature who wants to kill or enslave him. He just wants to be normal and have normal problems like everyone else.

But normality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When he gets sucked into an alternate reality where his mother has married his mentor and his Atlantean god best friend has become a human geek, he begins to understand that no life is free of pain, and that every person has a specific place in the universe… Even the son of a hated demon.

Most of all, he sees that his powers aren’t the curse he thought they were, and that the world needs a champion, especially one its enemies can’t imagine rising up to defend the ones he should destroy.

Old enemies and new friends square off for a major battle that will either restore Nick to his real world, or end him forever.

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My Review:  I so wanted to like this book more.  I adore this series and I always get sucked in by the world, characters, and humor.  While I still really enjoyed reading this book, some problems that have been stacking up throughout this series were finally too much for me.  Namely, the lack of direction and the confusing names and excess characters.  

The characters in these books have completely captured my heart and I always enjoy reading about them.  The chemistry they have between them is amazing.  The bounce off of each other perfectly to create incredibly entertaining and humorous interactions.  I especially love Nick and Caleb.  The relationship they have and the way it has grown and developed as the books have gone on is so much fun to see.  They are one of my absolute favorite parts of the entire series and I really look forward to seeing it more in the coming books (which I've heard there is to be a lot of).  

I also really love the writing style of this series.  Sherrilyn Kenyon has a way with words.  It's just so entertaining to read the things she writes!  I don't think any book has ever made me laugh as much or as hard as the ones she writes do.  I really have a blast reading these!

Unfortunately, that's about where my enjoyment of this book ends.  From the very first book, there's always been an underlying feeling of confusion as I read.  There was a lot of names and names of species and places to learn that always was hard for me to grasp and remember.  It was difficult just figuring out exactly what was going on.  To make matters worse, there are flashbacks and flash forwards and major characters who aren't even from this time playing a role in what's going on!  Everything is so complex and layered, it's very hard to get your mind around and that's just in the regular series.  But in this book, everything is switched and Nick is thrown into an alternate reality!  So now, not only am I trying to juggle everything that I'm confused about in the normal reality, we now have a bunch of the same characters who are completely different and all switched around in this book.  So basically, I just spent the entire book like this.  

  
It just...I really did not appreciate this at all.  I got that it helped Nick realize that he liked his life or whatever but SERIOUSLY.  I feel like I wasted an entire book with a bunch of characters who weren't the people I've come to love.  Not to mention how there were a bunch of other characters thrown in that I had no recollection of but Nick talked about like they had been here the entire time (I'm looking at you, Devereaux family).  He mentions a bunch of things that have happened between them that never happened in the book (except for with a couple of the girls mentioned) and I feel like I've missed something in the series even though I haven't!  It's really frustrating.  

The frustration continues to mount with the way this series is laid out.  Basically, we're all just sitting here waiting to see whether or not Nick will become evil.  Because there really isn't a tangible end goal in that, like, we don't know where, when, or how that is going to happen, it feels like this entire plot line is just one long, drawn out waiting game.  So, there's a lot of meaningless and unimportant things that are happening that really play no significant role in getting us to where this will end.  It all feels very disorganized, especially with how many characters and possible villains there are.  

All of this has sounded negative but, really, this is one of my absolute favorite series.  I love Nick.  He's in my top five favorite main characters of books and trust me, it's a loooooong list.  There are so many awesome aspects of this series.  I just got a little fed up with all of the problems I do have in this series, as they were the most prominent in this one.  I'm really hoping the author finds a way to reel back on all of the confusing parts and excess characters because that is really what is bringing this series down.  

“By the power of Grayskull. . . I have the power!" (Nick)
"By the power of Grayskull, I'm going to cleave your skull from your shoulders if you don't take this seriously." (Caleb)”

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