Shift~Donnielle Tyner

Title: Shift (Caelian Cycle #3)
Author: Donnielle Tyner
Genre: YA Sci-fi
Length: 186 Pages
Release: July 2016
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Review

Shift is the conclusion to a trilogy that I have really enjoyed. It started with Lost and was quickly followed by Bound. This novel picks up not long after the previous installment leaves off, with Sadie in a new place, surrounded by new people, and dealing with even more than she had previously had to. 

While this was a fairly satisfactory conclusion to the series as a whole, I found the majority of this book to be repetitive and somewhat unnecessary. Not much happens for the first half of the novel, as far as plot goes. Sadie is recovering from her PTSD in therapy and doing combat training with Luca, but her thoughts and actions seem to spiral in circles. One second she's thinking that something isn't right or that she shouldn't be so selfish and the next she's agreeing with what had previously annoyed her and being selfish again. It was just rather off putting. Some of the sections and sentences also seemed to contradict each other somewhat.

Part of my problem with this book is likely not entirely the story or characters, but the fact that I had a hard time recalling many of the details from the previous installments. I knew who the main characters were and remembered a lot that had happened between all of them, but the little political details were not fresh enough for me to recall and it left me more confused than I think I would have been otherwise. 

I find the Talents in this novel to be a lot of fun, though I am slightly confused at times by exactly what they mean. Each Caelian citizen has their own look with different skin and hair tones, as well as unique powers. It seems that no two of them have exactly the same abilities. 

The little inserts of news reports and interviews are also a nice touch. It lets you know what's going on without everything being filtered through Sadie. And in some cases you find out things before she does. 

Overall I enjoyed this, it just lacked the strength of the first book. There was a lot of potential that I don't think was ever completely realized. Sadie and her friends had a lot of conflicts that could have added interesting elements but instead just fizzed out or were brushed aside. With a little more exploration some of that could have made for a very exciting installment. As it stands it's a lot of fun and a nice wrap up.