Horizon by Alyson Noel

TL;DR melodrama and convenient plot devices galore

(finished 8/19/15)

Well, I managed to read The Soul Seekers series all the way through. I consider that a big accomplishment. Honestly, I don't know if I'm just a jaded reader, or if most of the series falls victim to the "pre-2010 YA feel" that I still haven't blogged about, but I was pretty underwhelmed by Horizon considering it's the final book in the series. (But let's be honest, I was underwhelmed by all the other books, too.) 

My review of Mystic says that I thought it was better than Echo, but I definitely think Horizon is worse than both of them. Horizon only made me mad.

First up, there are a ton of things that aren't mentioned until after the fact or are brought up too nonchalantly. I know I mentioned this in the review for Mystic, but holy crap I was in a constant state of confusion because the characters gave me no indication of what was going on. What do you mean Xotichl got her sight completely back? What do you mean Cade just suddenly made an appearance after 6 months of being MIA? What do you mean Dace's eyes turned red? That's bad narration. You can't just skip vital pieces of information like that and just be like, "oh yeah, that happened" a couple chapters later!!

Also along that line, everyone minus Xotichl was a cardboard cutout of an immature teenager. (Xotichl was more human, but even she was out of character.) Oh no, my boyfriend decides to distance himself from us because he's turning into a monster, I'm going to put him before everyone else who rightfully is doubtful about him! Oh no, my boyfriend decides to go back to the Upperworld when all three worlds are going to hell because he "hears his people in agony", he must be ditching me to date some other spirit guide instead! Just stop.

It's also mentioned around the end of the book that they're not even in their senior year yet. I don't know about you, but even the immature juniors at my school can handle crises more effectively than these kids. Also, how did Daire just miraculously gain control of Paloma's adobe and clients? Why are Cade and Dace made managers of the Rabbit Hole? Why do they have fancy cars in the middle of absolute nowhere? Why the heck is there no mention of these kids in school?

I haven't used bolded words in a review yet. This is kind of nice. Can you tell I'm bitter?

Let's also discuss how Horizon just blatantly disregards everything the previous books established and re-makes the rules as it goes. One twin can't live without the other? Oh, we'll just fix that with the power of love~  Leftfoot gets his throat slit "inadvertently" by the beast Dace turns into? He gets miraculously healed! (I don't even remember who heals him. Only that he--and Dace--survive when they should've been dead by all established logic.) Jennika has trouble with commitment? Let's just change that with a wish granted from Daire's spirit guide! It's not a satisfying ending when they haven't earned the happy ending. I cannot think of anything that would justify them getting almost everything they want this easily other than making it a ~nice happy ending~

How could Horizon (and the series in general) be improved?

• no unnecessary deaths (read: Paloma and Chay)
• deaths where the characters should've died but miraculously lived because ~plot shield~ (read: Dace and Leftfoot)
• ACTUAL SANE ADULTS
• differences in the narrations used, instead of them all sounding the exact same
• more mature teens who care less about having sex all the time and a little more about not killing everyone around them with their stupidity
• romances that didn't read like they were cut and paste out of Romeo and Juliet
• better pacing, not three months for the first three books and then six months between the third and the fourth (only for the fourth to take place over what feels like two days)
• someone involved with the publishing process sending the book through another round of revision plot- and character-wise

I honestly only finished the series so I could be done with it, and because the library had the subsequent books available when I went. Do I regret doing so? Only slightly. I feel like Daire and Dace killed off a few of my own brain cells. (I fully enjoyed unleashing my snark on them, though. That I do not regret. As always, I typed it up into a spreadsheet. Even just putting the spreadsheet together made me really angry at everything.)

TL;DR maybe this entire series would've been better if someone had sat down and said, "look, you've got a good start, but you really need to develop your characters and your plot devices before we publish this." I really wish that would've happened. I could maybe have excused the mediocre plot and enjoyed the series if I didn't hate most of the main characters, cringe at every mention of romance, and honestly hope that the bad guys won in the end. (And I really did. I really hoped Cade would win and kill both Daire and Dace. At least then they couldn't ruin anything with their "romance"--even if that meant the Richters were still in charge.) 

I obviously tried to give this series a chance, proven by the fact I read all four books despite deciding I didn't want to keep my copy of the first book. I'm usually a pretty patient reader, but I do not excuse shallowly-written characters or insta-lust that continues on for the entire series. I think I was holding out for an ending marginally better than the rest of the series, and yet I was disappointed by an unearned "happy ending" (if you can truly call it that) and a cliffhanger that suggests there could be a spinoff series. No thank you.