By Blood We Live

I'm not sure what the point of all that was.Of course, one of the sticking points of this series is that there is no point. Except when there is. It can be a fun narrative trick, in [b:The Last Werewolf 9532302 The Last Werewolf (The Last Werewolf, #1) Glen Duncan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1287572224s/9532302.jpg 14418429] it certainly was, toying with a plot point for a few pages, and then tossing it out the window. Duncan never wants you to know what kind of book you're reading until its right on top of you. The issue here was whatever kind of book I just read I did not enjoy.Because By Blood We Live is actually about fate and destiny and strings that tie its characters together, even though it doesn't want to admit, or won't admit it until the very end. Vampires, it appears, are much better entities for talking about destiny than werewolves, especially Remshi, in his old age of twenty-fucking-thousand years. His appearances in [b:Talulla Rising 12981174 Talulla Rising (The Last Werewolf, #2) Glen Duncan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1339696875s/12981174.jpg 18140283] made him seem cocky, like a rugged aimless rock star. Here, he's more like a sweet old man. A sweet old man who just saw the prehistoric love of his life reincarnated in an angry, self-deprecating werewolf mother of two. His perspective did get more interesting as the story went on, as the picture became clearer for him, however his point of view was incredibly static, as old men have a tendency to be. He's less of an active force in the story, and more a creature being swept up by the last tides of his life. I missed Talulla's drive and unbridled passion. She doesn't adapt to peacetime well. She feels unsatisfied in her relationship with Walker, she's nervous about her ability to raise her children through everything they've been through and everything they have ahead of them. If there's anything she does well at all in this book its hating herself. Which frustrates me because there was so much set up in the last book for the extraordinary thing she was becoming. It's called Talulla RISING for fuck's sake, she was being primed to be a pack leader, a mother of monsters. Instead, she's the reincarnation of an old ass vampire's love interest? The pawn of the Vatican's hunter faction, the Militi Christi? The fickle bitch who broke some poor former hunter's heart? This is what I was waiting for? Not that a female character can't have self-doubt, or can't be put in a compromising position. TR had plenty of that, but it also had plenty of Talulla kicking ass and getting shit done, even when she was scared out of her mind. Here, Talulla wasn't so much scared, but bored and tired. She wants to give up her relationship with Walker, her status as a mother, her pack, even her lycanthropy. I did not fall in love with a character whose first inclinication is to give up. Nevermind the relationships that were teased in the second book, especially the one that was developing between her and Maddy. I was all about Talulla and Maddy. But instead of the two of them getting together, Talulla spends the whole time trying to push Maddy and Walker together so she doesn't have to feel bad about leaving him. Which, like, whyyyy? Why was that necessary at all? In fact, there was so much female goodness in TR (maybe its just me, but was it not implied that the reason why the wolves were bonding and working together better than they did in Jake Marlowe's day was because there were more female wolves?), that I was confused as to why we even needed the perspectives of Walker and even Remshi. I mean, when you get down to it, what did they even add to the story? Justine, Remshi's young companion, could have just as easily told Remshi's story, and then her own story would not have felt like an awkward side plot. Now I'm just confused. This whole trilogy could not have been leading up to this kind of non-conclusion. Nothing at all is resolved, there's all this set up for a new phase of the story, Talulla even gets new abilities, and this is supposed to be the end? I feel like I just read a rambling interlude rather than a climax. That said, if there is more to this series, as much as I loved the first two books, I'm not sure if I would want to read it.