Wanted More Dorian3.75 Stars. This book started out strong and ended strong. It’s much more grown up than the first book and I loved the way Alexis’s character had developed between Promise and Purpose. She’s a little broken, and very real. Where I had some problems with this book was the middle. Tristan’s return is wonderful but his relationship with Alexis quickly gets lovey-dovey. I get that they needed time to reunite, but I felt like the middle of this book got a little too mushy.
This starts out years after Promise ends and I really liked that Alexis had grown as a person. She wasn’t the same girl from the first book, but she still felt like the same person. I really felt her pain, and believed that her love for Tristan combined with living with his absence and trying to hold on to hope that he was still alive would affect her exactly as it did. She was torn between not wanting to forget him and needing to be strong enough to continue on with her life. She pulls it together for her son though, and I understood that.
In Purpose Alexis is a little erratic at times, and she’s gotten much more bitchy, especially in the beginning. But, I felt for the most part that it was an honest portrayal of a girl growing older and becoming more cynical. Although at times she did seem a little too extreme. As the story went on I liked the idea of Alexis having this inner battle with good and evil. I also liked Owen a lot in this book and how complex his relationship with Alexis was. I wish that the author had explored this a little further even.
Also, I loved Alexis’s son, Dorian. He was written very well and I wished that he had been in this book more. I felt like the parts of the story that revolved around him were more real and better developed than others. For example, the over lovey dovey-ness in the middle almost felt a little out of place, it felt too easy when the author had done such a good job setting up the beginning to show the complexity of love. Then there’s all this mushy stuff and I felt like it lost its honesty and believability and in turn was romanticized too much. I wanted for Alexis and Tristan to have a wonderful reunion, and they did, but there was so much time spent on this that it almost felt like the characters had regressed some. I wanted to rush through some of the love scenes to see Tristan meet Dorian. I wanted this to happen so much sooner and would have traded some of the mushy love story in the middle for more time with Dorian.
Some of the other things that I didn’t like as much were that again, in this book Alexis was a little too naieve at times. She can just be a little oblivious and there were times when I figured something out chapters before she did.
Also, I felt the religious themes in this book were stronger than they were in the first one. I enjoyed Cook’s message and I loved that she’s written a book that holds true to her values without ignoring, or watering down the passion, but I think the author could have been less blunt and still gotten the same message across. Also there were times when I wondered if Cook was Alexis, especially when it becomes obvious that Alexis’s purpose in life was to write books to inform her readers about the evil in the world and how to protect themselves from it. Was this also maybe what Cook was trying to do by writing the book in the first place? This wasn’t something that bothered me much, just a thought.
Overall I enjoyed this read, and I did go on to read the sample of the next book wanting to know more. But, I feel at this time I’m going to take a break from this series to read something else, and maybe I’ll return to it later.
Read my review for the first book in this series Promise
