The Shadowglass

I wish I had the first two books in front of me to refer back to while reading this one. Specifically, the last few chapters of book two. Like the first two books, this one alternates chapters between the bard's point of view, and the story told to the bard by Tea. The difference is that they have separated paths at this point; so instead of the bard's chapters being very short, getting clarification on the story she's telling, he's now telling what's happening to him in present day, interspersed with Tea's letters that he's carrying, with the rest of her story. This gets VERY confusing. It's confusing even trying to explain the timeline! Okay, if we split up all three books between Tea's story and the Bard's viewpoint, chronologically they'd look like this:

The Bone Witch - Tea's Story
The Heartforger - Tea's Story
The Shadowglass - Tea's Story
The Bone Witch - Bard's Viewpoint
The Heartforger - Bard's Viewpoint
The Shadowglass - Bard's Viewpoint

See why I'd like to have the other two books to refer back to? This book is giving me part 3 and part 6. And while it was pretty easy to keep them straight in books one and two, because the Bard wasn't doing much besides having a conversation with Tea, in this book, he's off seeing OTHER important events that are happening while Tea is doing other things - and occasionally flitting in and out of his orbit too!

It is a good conclusion - the end, especially, had me crying into my book - but most of the book was very, VERY confusing. Like another conclusion I've read recently, if you moved straight through the trilogy with no waiting time, it might not be too bad.

What ESPECIALLY annoys me, is in the Bard's viewpoint in the first two books, she does something that is supposed to be impossible. So in her story in The Shadowglass, this thing is impossible. But in the Bard's viewpoint, she's ALREADY DONE IT. And there's no explanation of HOW. That's really what I'd like to refer back to the other two books about. Having that particular task be in the time gap between the two parts of the book was poorly done. Like, really? I read Book 2 almost a YEAR AGO. I don't remember how that part happened.

So that's particularly frustrating. I wish Book 3 had condensed to one timeline. I don't really see why it couldn't have. It would have been much less confusing!

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