sábado, 11 de setembro de 2010

Perseguida/Hunted, P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast

Nota: A minha opinião está em inglês porque precisava de fazer uma crítica para um concurso em que estou a participar (link aqui) no facebook. Eventualmente poderei colocar a tradução, por agora fica em inglês. Ironicamente, esta crítica em inglês parece-me a mais decente que fiz. Talvez o ter de escrever noutra língua me obrigue a pensar no que estou a escrever.

Sinopse: As boas notícias: Zoey conquistou os seus amigos de volta e a nova Stevie Ray já não é apenas um segredo de Neferet. As más notícias: um mal antigo com rosto de anjo foi libertado, com outras criaturas não tão angélicas. A avó Redbird está em apuros. Heath está em apuros. A Casa da Noite está em apuros. Na verdade, o mundo inteiro de Zoey está a ruir!

Mas quando os problemas são desencadeados por um ser que aparenta personificar a própria beleza, em quem irá o mundo acreditar? Especialmente quando uma adolescente vampyra à frente de um grupo de marginalizados é a única a compreender o perigo que ele representa. Terá Zoey a força e a sabedoria para revelar a verdade?

Description: What if the hottest guy in the world was hiding a nameless evil and all he wanted was you?

At the start of this heart-pounding new installment of the bestselling House of Night series, Zoey's friends have her back again and Stevie Rae and the red fledglings aren't Neferet's secrets any longer. But an unexpected danger has emerged. Neferet guards her powerful new consort, Kalona, and no one at the House of Night seems to understand the threat he poses. Kalona looks gorgeous, and he has the House of Night under his spell. A past life holds the key to breaking his rapidly spreading influence, but what if this past life shows Zoey secrets she doesn't want to hear and truths she can't face?

On the run and holed up in Tulsa's Prohibition-era tunnels, Zoey and her gang must discover a way to deal with something that might bring them all down. Meanwhile, Zoey has a few other little problems. The red fledglings have cleaned up well--they've even managed to make the dark, creepy tunnels feel more like home--but are they really as friendly as they seem? On the boyfriend front, Zoey has a chance to make things right with super-hot ex-, Eric, but she can't stop thinking about Stark, the archer who died in her arms after one unforgettable night, and she is driven to try to save him from Neferet's sinister influence at all costs. Will anyone believe the power evil has to hide among us?

Review: Following the House of Night series has been for me like a big rollercoaster. There have been things in the series that drove me crazy, and things that I really liked. An example of the former is the way Zoey can't seem to manage properly her love interests or the Twins' annoying way of talking (really at some points I can't stand them); an example of the latter is the way some characters have been developed (some examples would be Aphodite, Stevie Rae and Stark) or the way the series' mythology around vampires has been established by the authors.

For those reasons, I have disliked some books but really liked others; this one I actually liked. The book starts right after Untamed, and at first I thought it would focus too much on the soap opera part of the story (Zoey and her undecision between Erik and Heath), but then it gets better, because Zoey finds herself in mortal danger and has to return to the House of Night. There she meets again Kalona and Neferet, gets a glimpse of what they may be up to and gets to see Stark again (yawn! another love interest).

The pace of the book seems a little... fast, because the whole story happens in like 2 days (at least that's what it looked like to me) - it's interesting how P. C. and Kristin manage to tell a story within so little time, balancing the slow moments of the story (the character development) and the fast moments of it (the, say, action moments).

The characters I enjoyed the most were Aphodite (she rocks!), Stevie Rae (I'm wondering what the hell she isn't telling Zoey), Heath (this guy is so cute and puppy-like) and Stark (I see big things in his future). The characters I least enjoyed were Kalona and Neferet (I'm expecting nothing less than trying to achieve world domination from these two, and I haven't seen that yet), Erik (I know this guy was swoon-worthy in the beginning of the series but the way he's been acting lately... I'm just hoping Zoey gets rid of him because I think he's the main reason Zoey can't find any balance between her love interests) and Zoey's close friends (Damien, the Twins and Jack, because story-wise, they sometimes just seem to be there to fill the story).

Action-wise, I really liked the final chapters of the book (I shall say no more in order not to spoil it), but the ending felt a little rushed to me - although it made me want to read the next book right away.

Long story (oops, I meant review) short, this book was really amusing and much more enjoyable than, say, Betrayed or Chosen (these two I felt were too focused on all that love interests' drama). The balance between character development and action was just right and, as I mentioned, I was left wishing I could read the next one right away.

Título original/Original title: Hunted (2009)
 
Páginas/Pages: 320
 
Editora/Publisher: Saída de Emergência
 
Tradutora/Translator: Susana Serrão

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