Forgiven (Forlorn, #3) by Gina Detwiler Review

This is a spoiler-free review! You can read my reviews of Forlorn and Forsaken on my blog, now!

This is starting to become a personal form of torture... I simply need to stop reading these books but I am in too deep and have to see it to the very end. After the lackluster events of the second installment, my hopes were even lower going into this book - the writing unfortunately shows no signs of improving and the pacing still feels like I am being jerked between directions, with no clear goal that seems fighting for. 

I feel as though I have given these characters so many chances to try and charm me, and yet every page continues to show me that it simply will not be happening. Grace continues to baffle me as she is incapable to drawing readers in and her problem-solving skills are comparable to a child. I frankly do not care about her any longer and can only hope she gains some common sense in the near future. Her choices often take a vast majority of overthinking before being implemented, or she has to make a decision in the very last moment, making her appear either ill-prepared or just not up to the task.

Jared at least has some interesting characters that keeps readers mildly entertained, and considering his plot lines are more "intense" and have more dire consequences, his perspective chapters outweigh Grace's by a mile. That being said, his story still does not have me on the edge of my seat and I find myself wishing the maturity level of this series would increase so at least the action scenes would be more entertaining. The lack of development of any fight scenes or more intensity when the stakes are supposed to be high dampens the reading experience.

I am finding it harder after each book to be able to express my opinions into words - there is only so much I can say and reiterate before I feel as though there is simply nothing else to say. It is a rare occurrence that I have found myself at a lack of words, but I just cannot muster up anything beyond what I have divulged into in my reviews for the two previous books. The Christian "mythology" and religious aspect would be more alluring if it was something that we had not seen before, but with so many books utilizing fallen angels in the height of the 2000s and 2010s, this series is not measuring up to the detail that those other books were able to summon. At this point, I do not even know how many books I have left in this series, but the one thing I am certain on is that I will be grateful once it is over.

You can add Forgiven on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

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Forsaken (Forlorn, #2) by Gina Detwiler Review

This is a spoiler-free review! You can read my review of Forlorn on my blog, now!

I own this entire series (given to me as a gift) so I find myself needing the satisfaction of finishing what I started, even though my thoughts on Forlorn were less than favorable. The concept certainly has its moments and I can see the vision the author wanted to lay out for readers, but it feels chunky and the pacing was like walking through tar - I found myself pushing through simply to finally get it over with. While it has been a decent amount of time since I read the first installment, it is fairly easy to simply pick up right where you left off. As someone who typically does not read any reviews of books before I have completed them, I was surprised to see a number of reviews for Forsaken noting that people were simply skipping the first book entirely. I cannot imagine just not reading the first book in a series. That being said, the first book could have been a lot shorter and the point still would have been made.

I had an ounce of hope that this series would somewhat improve - whether it was the writing, the plot, the torturous text abbreviations - literally, anything. Unfortunately that was simply not the case and I found myself stuck in a trap of reading yet another prolonged plot that could have been half the length of this novel. While I can appreciate the author wanting to have a multitude of side plots for Grace and Jared, it was not necessary in order to tie their journeys together. It felt as though we were jumping around for the entirety of the book without being able to settle into a side plot before being ripped away from it.

Grace's ignorance is staggering and frankly it becomes detrimental to her characterization - you want to root for her, but considering her common sense is getting knocked out of her every other chapter, there is not much to root for. At least Jared has some problem-solving skills courses around in his head, though they are few and far between. I could not find myself able to honestly even care about these characters - there was nothing about them that had me emotionally attached to them as a couple or as individuals. It is not that are they "not interesting," but rather that I do not connect to them or their motivations throughout the book. They kind of blindly follow other people's instructions most of the time and it stressed me out on how slowly they worked towards their goals.

This second installment left me underwhelmed and reinforced my original sentiments towards the series that it simply may not be for me. I can definitely see the appeal for maybe a new adult crowd that has not meddled in a fantasy series before, but I would not be reaching for this over the blockbuster fantasy series that are in my typical rotation.

You can add Forsaken on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter (X), and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!