Destined by P.C. Cast
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was a much better book than I had anticipated. The last book, Awakened, was good, but not great. It was pretty much setup for this book. I love this series, and this book as renewed that love, full force. It made me laugh out loud more times than I can count, and it made me cry, which I don’t like, but its an excellent sign of a well written story. The main theme of this book seems to be the loss of a parent. Whether they are deceased or not good at being a parent, or absent from your life entirely. Sadly, I have experience with both absent and inattentive parents, so I was able to, uncomfortably to say the least, relate to a lot of that in this book, even if I wasn’t willing to admit that until I sat down to write this review.
This books starts off where Awakened ended, with Zoey realizing that her mother has died and Nyx has accepted her into the Otherworld. We follow the characters through various levels of grief, love, comfort, solitude, anger, desperation and loss. Thanatos has arrived from the High Council with the hope of exposing Neferet for what she really is, Zoey, the Nerd Herd, Stevie Rae and the Red Fledglings (They sound like a lounge act), Rephaim, Darius and Stark all sign up to help her, but they do begin to hold tings back, and fill Thanatos in on a need-to-know basis. We meet a new fledgling, Shaylin, who is the first fledgling to be marked Red, and who was blind prior to her marking and now can not only see, but has “True Sight,” meaning she can see the truth about people through seeing their auras. We know she sees purple around Zoey, red and black around stark, pea green around Erik, and Neferet looks like “dead fish eyes,” and scared her. Thanatos is also apparently quite lovely in this version of sight.
Dragon Lankford has had a hard time, and while Dragon’s Oath is alluded to, you can read this book without having read it, however it does give you a great insight into what’s going on with him. His departure at the end of the book, and his finding of his true self again, brings a nice closure to his story. I am happy to see him go, I wasn’t sure I could handle a few books of his brooding and hatred, even if justified. His ability to find mercy, and protect that which had killed his love, displayed the great power that forgiveness and mercy hold for all of us if we can reach out and embrace it.
Rephaim is a HUGE part of this book. We spend a lot of time with him and Stevie Rae. His desire to be a “normal boy” reminded me of Pinocchio a little too much at first, but it did get better. Rephaim loves Stevie Rae, his new friends, and being a human boy, even though he must pay the cost of becoming a raven at dawn and being that mindless creature until the sun sets. He returns to Stevie Rae at the depot each night in time to go to school. As we find out later, when he is the raven, he does manage to find his way to where his father and brothers are living on the ridge, though he cannot interact with them, and most likely does not even recognize them. He has no memory of this half of his day. Kalona spends a good deal of the book struggling with his parenting abilities and is the example of less than stellar parenting used most often in the book, even though we hear a good deal about Aphrodite’s hag of a mother, Zoey’s mother’s failings, Damien’s mother’s failings, Shaunee’s father’s abandonment of her, and so on. As I said earlier, it is a main theme of the book, but the whole daddy thing comes to a head with Kalona. I didn’t expect it. I expected that he *may* eventually turn back to Nyx, because she said he could ask for forgiveness when he was worthy of it, but given how long the whole Kalona thing has dragged on (I was really sick of him after he’d only been in 2 books), I expected it to take much longer. Throughout the book Kalona is constantly missing Rephaim. He is constantly comparing Nisroc to him, and angry with Nisroc for not being Rephaim. Shaunee’s generosity in offering Kalona a way to communicate with Rephaim, and his witnessing of Rephaim’s day, and the changes he has to endure because of Kalona’s misdeeds seem to finally catch up with him, and culminate in one of the more poinent moments in the book, quoted below.
“‘Help you, we will?’
Kalona’s anger exploded at the hissing, semi-human sound of his other son’s voice. He turned on Nisroc, raising his hand to cuff him into silence. The Raven Mockers who were clustered around scurried back, out of his reach. Nisroc cringed, but remained near and did not try to escape his father’s wrath.
Mid-swing, Kalona hesitated. He let his fist drop to his side. He starred at his silent son who crouched, waiting for the blow.
‘Why?’ Kalona allowed the desperation he was feeling to be heard in his voice. ‘Why would you want to help me?’
Nisroc raised his head. There was confusion in the red gaze. ‘You are Father.’
‘But I have not been a good father,’ Kalona heard himself say.
Nisroc’s gaze remained steady on his. ‘That mattersss not. Ssstill you are Father.'”
Rephaim felt the same way. He hoped his father would change, would come around, would take back shunning him. Shaunee feels the same way about her father, which allows the two to understand each other, and to become friends. Zoey unerstands because she had always wished her mother would one day wake up, leave her jerk of a husband and be her mother again. Damien also understands wanting your parents to be different. It is a common thread among them that ties the story and characters together in this book. In the end, Kalona comes through, saving his son, and starting to turn back toward Nyx by serving Thanatos as her Warrior and Sword Master of the Tulsa House of Night. He accepts Rephaim for who he is, instead of insisting he remain to be the subservient creature he had always been. Sadly, life does not always turn out like that, and its unlikely that it will turn out that way for the rest of their group and their parent issues.
Overall this is an excellent book, I was genuinely surprised, as I had expected it to be less than awesomesauce based on the last book, and the somewhat boring tone of Dragon’s Oath. I was very pleasantly surprised, and I’m looking forward to the next installment, which I hope reaches bookstores soon, because I’m as impatient as they come.
❤ Cordie
Cordelia's Room 