Rating: Summary: Different look at the Ending Review: I found the ending of the this Trilogy to be beautiful, and in total a wonderful Fairy Tale. I believe that people should remember that Ms. Dart-Thorton is weaving a very long Fairy Tale. And as for the ending, it is bitter sweet, but again, in my oppinion Beautiful. I've read many fairy tales and in all that I have read none turned out to be a happy ending like in Disney Movies. Also, I don't find the ending to be sudden or unexpected. Through out the Series there is a lot of Foreshadowing. And I also argue that the ending is in it's way happy. If anyone has read the Epilogue, I believe that Thorn and Ashalind live happily ever after. Maybe not in a Mortal sense, but I know that they are happy. All in all, if you like Fairy Tales, and I don't mean Disney Fairy Tales, but the Tales that might be found in the Blue Book of Fairy Tales, or other such books, then I think you will like this final book in the Bitterbynde Series.
Rating: Summary: Don't be sad, guys! the second ending is the real one! =D Review: I guess all of you know what happened in book 1 & 2 of THE BITTERBYNDE TRIOLOGY... i just want to say that it's normal for Ashalind to be thinking about Thorn all the time because she really loves him...however, Cecilia Dart-Thornton could definitely have done better in the chapter before the epilogue... she didn't have to separate Thorn and Ashalind, and Ashalind should have remembered that Angavar would watch over her... the thing is, if she had ventured into the Faeran lands before going back to Erith, she probably would have seen Angavar again... As it is, she was on her way to Caermelor when the Faerans came to get back their High King. During the 5 minutes she was in Faeran, 7 years had passed in Erith. She didn't even have to stay for a minute, less time than that would have been just enough to see Angavar again... To those who don't visit Cecilia Dart-Thornton's website, you should visit it because there're some FAQ's that help you understand the triology better... here's a question and answer about the epilogue... Question:In The Battle of Evernight there were two alternative endings in the Epilogue. Which one do you personally like better and which one is the most probable ending? CECILIA DART-THORNTON REPLIES: I like the second ending, because it is the real one! I hope that all of you won't be disappointed with this review... :)
Rating: Summary: Bitterblunder Review: I loved the first two books in this series and being somewhat of a soppy romantic I had fallen in love with the unErithly beauty of "Thorn". I finished reading 'The Battle of Evernight' about an hour ago and I am still reeling from the putrid, pathetic ending. The ending is so unsatisfying and utterly hateful that I wish I had never starting reading the series. I have given it two stars in memory of my love of the first two books. Don't bother with it folks. Read Lord of the Rings again instead.
Rating: Summary: It really IS a fairy tale Review: I often enjoy fantasy books with meandering plots because the world in which I wander is pleasing. In the same fashion, I also take pleasure in 'over-writing' where the author uses far more adjectives and adverbs than considered acceptable by modern-day writing pundits. So, I enjoyed the Battle of Evernight, though I agree it is not the best of the Bitterbynde trilogy. I don't quite understand though why so many other readers are outraged by its ending. It is clear, especially in this last book, how much this trilogy is modelled on the traditional fairy tale. Its morality, the chastity of its main characters, the ambiguity of good and evil, are all typical. And the penultimate end is also familiar - the end many feel so let down by. It is a magical, a wave-of-the-wand-and-everything-comes-out-right ending. Just right for a fairy tale, even such a long one as this. It was unexpected, and I rather liked it.
Rating: Summary: I Was Hoping For Much Better! Review: I rated the Ill Made Mute a 4, I really enjoyed it. The Lady of the Sorrows was not as good, I rated it as a 3. But The Battle of Evernight barely deserves this 2. I had such a hard time keeping interest in characters that I had already been vested in for two books! I found it very hard to fight the need to skim through certain parts out of boredom (and I lost that fight more than once). The endless descriptions at this point were just nerve racking and annoying. I had braced myself for the ending, since I saw in other reviews how disappointed other people were with it. I have a lot of imagination, so the end did not bother me as much as some, I was able to see where the author was going with her Epilogue and follow it though on my own, but to get there was a chore. These three books could have been 2, and the better for it. I was almost annoyed by the end of this trilogy. What started out wonderfully, ended in what seems like a drawn out forced trilogy! IF this author writes more books, I will try them, she does seem to have something that interests me, but I hope it is more rewarding than this story!
Rating: Summary: Amazing prose Review: I read about 60 books a year. I'll be rereading this and the other two books in this series again this year. Every now and then you just have to say 'wow,' the prose is that good. For a new author to hang words together this way was just the best suprise of the year for me. I had to wait two months for this book to come in and it was worth every day of it.
Rating: Summary: Satisfied Review: I read this book in one eight hour stretch (honest!). It was a fitting end to the trilogy, I thought. I admit that as I neared the end, I was nearly too scared to finish it, because I had read of others' disappointment with the ending. I was relieved to find the ending...satisfactory. My only real complaint with this novel was the author's slip into excessive alliteration about half-way through--she seems to have gotten caught up in the speech affectation of one of her characters and couldn't let it rest. Other than that, this was a most enjoyable trilogy that I will definitely read again. (This refers to the paperback edition.)
Rating: Summary: The Battle of Evernight Review Review: I really enjoyed Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde series but found the conclusion of the third book (the battle of evernight) to be unsatisfactory. It ended abruptly and left the reader felling disappointed and frustrated. For a thirteen year old to read three such substantial books and then be rewarded with such an inconclusive ending is heart-breaking. Although the final ending of the series was such a disappointment I would still reccommend everyone to try these very detailed fantasy novels as they are absolutely engrossing and enjoyable up until the final conclusion (which happens to be in the epilouge!)
Rating: Summary: Annoying and Aimless Review: I skipped through paragraphs at a time, and only finished the book because I was hooked by "The Ill Made Mute". The author could go on for pages about the bark of a tree, but she introduces characters and doesn't do anything with them. We meet wonderful characters and become involved with their lives, and then they just sort of drift away. Even the heroine ambles along without a path or a definite goal. I had to force myself to finish the book, and put it away feeling irritated and disgruntled.
Rating: Summary: Great story BUT..... Review: I think "The Bitterbynde Trilogy" had the potential to be a great fantasy trilogy. While many of the plot points are cliched and predictable (to be expected considering the fairy tale conventions), the twists were real twists and the surprises were real surprises. Having said that, there are some major flaws in this last book. While there is a plot-related reason for Via's change of character, she is "on stage' for too long after the encounter and becomes so unpleasant that I wanted to throw her to some unseelie wight and have done with her attitude. Dart-Thornton never spends much time on this character after the climax of the book, so the character is never rehabiliated, and I am left feeling annoyed that I had to spend so much time reading about her. Prince Edward also has changes in behavior, which, although foreshadowed, still somehow don't ring true to me. I would have rather liked the original ending had Dart-Thornton either developed it less or developed it more. If it had simply ended with Edward's kiss, that could have been a beautiful, bitter, ironic ending and left it to the reader to decide what happened next. Instead, she chose to describe what happened afterward in only a few pages. At this point, Ashalind displays none of the insight, pluck, nerve, or intelligence that got her where she is. Even as a mute with no memory she had more personality. I cared very little about the "real" ending since I no longer cared about the shell of Ashalind. Finally, I have to confess to very mixed feelings about Imrhien/Rohain/Tahquil/Ashalind. Although I was interested in would what happen next to her, I didn't really care what the outcome would be. It seemed that she was just so perfect that she would overcome her trials through simple perfection. It's a good thing the book ended when it did, because if one more person fell in love with her, I was going to have to throw the book out the window. Overall, it's a good series that goes on too long. BTW, I bought this in paperback at Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago. I don't know why Amazon isn't carrying it yet.
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