Jessica (Goldenfurpro)'s Reviews > MARIONETTE: A Supernatural Horror

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MY THOUGHTS
After the end of Paper Dolls, I wanted to keep reading the series. This book was a little lackluster and wasn't really what I expected it to be. It had some interesting ideas, but it took a long time to get there.

Cassie doesn't know who to trust. The family that she thought she could trust, turned out to be part of the group that entrapped her in the Dollhouse in the first place. And Ethan, the boy she thought betrayed her, is back and has told her that she is from another dimension, a dimension that is in chaos. Her world is frozen, a world of ice, with serpents feeding on everyone. It's completely unrecognizable. Cassie, though, is back to being trapped, now in a castle instead of a Dollhouse. She and Molly are sent to the frozen world to find the book, but they end up in a lot more trouble.

After the end of Paper Dolls, I expected this book to focus on parallel worlds. That's part of why I continued, I'm a sucker for books featuring parallel worlds, but that wasn't the focus of this book. Cassie occasionally travels to the frozen world, but most of this book was, well, nothing. Not much happened. I actually was tempted to give up on this book, but I kept on reading because I paid for it.

Part of my disappointment comes from the synopsis. The synopsis has some frightening elements, but, I kind you not, none of that happens until the last 20% of the book. The rest of the book is mostly everyone trying to find the book, which is getting a bit old. I do think the last 20% was really interesting, and a lot more like what I expected from the book. It is incredibly frightening, and I really wanted to find out if Cassie would be okay.

This book is also in dual POV, showing some scenes from Ethan's perspective. It's interesting to see things from his perspective, but I really didn't care. I'm sorry, but Ethan isn't really that interesting of a character and I never felt chemistry between him and Cassie. I think there's romance in this book, but I say romance lightly because, well, I don't know how to explain this. Suddenly the characters are in love with each other, but I never feel a build and there's never real confirmation that they're a thing, they're just suddenly a thing. Also, while I like, Cassie, this book makes her seem like she's someone special and I don't really like that. In Dollhouse, it seemed like Cassie was in the situation because she was in the wrong place, wrong time, but now the book makes it sound like she was always meant to be a part of this. I don't know, I just preferred her being an ordinary girl that got sucked into this mess.

IN CONCLUSION
Okay, I know I have a lot of nitpicks, but I did end up liking this book, mostly because the gothic elements picked up the last 20% of the book. I think this is becoming a guilty pleasure series, because I don't really enjoy reading these books, but I think Anya Allyn has a lot of interesting ideas, so I want to see how things turn out. Because of the monster of an ending, I am continuing the series.