Grade: 4.5 Butterflies
Name: Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1)
Author: Robin LaFevers
Released: April 3rd 2012
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page Amount: 549 pages
Goodreads summary
Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.
Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?
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My Thoughts
This book had been going around the blogasphere and most of the reviews are just glowing with praise. Add the fact that it is about assassins, and I really wanted to read this and I had high expectations. I think it's bad to have high expectation going into a book, because most of the time the book disappoints you. However, this book is one of the rare ones that doesn't disappoint you. This book was every thing I wanted and expected it to be. The plot was brilliant, the characters where wonderful and had a lot of depth to them, and the writing was remarkable. However, there were a couple of minor problems, but like I said they where nothing serious, just bad enough to put it down a half a butterfly.
Before I got this book I knew it had more then 500 pages, but I didn't know how big it would be until I held it. When I saw how big this book was I was a little bit discouraged, because I have about three other books that are more then 500 pages and I never finished them because they got slow. So, I was really scared that about half way though the pace would just stop. However, that was not the case in this book. I read this book in about a day and a half and when I finished reading I was shocked, because this didn't feel like a 500+ page book. The pages just flew out of my hand. The only time the pacing slowed with a little bit in the middle and that was for about 20 pages.
The characters in this book where great!! I loved Ismae and Duval, I even loved the side characters like Beast. That really chose how good a writer LaFevers is, because, at least for me, there are very few authors who can make you love the main characters and the side characters. How I felt about Ismae's character kept changing, because the first half of the book it felt like she didn't think for herself. She just let the convent think for her and I hated that about her. However, in the second half of the book she started thinking for herself and I saw how great of a character she was.
Another complex character was Duval. So, I really like Duval's charcter. He felt like a really down to earth guy and his love for his sister was really heart warming. However, I could never connect with him. He felt like a really distant character though out most of the book and I was really mad at that, because he would have been perfect if only I could connect with him.
I felt like, at least pacing wise, the relationship between Ismae and Duval was perfect. It wasn't insta-love, but it wasn't to slow where you got bored with it. It was the perfect pace where feelings felt like they devoloped naturally. However, I couldn't feel the chemistry between the two characters. I don't know why it was like that, maybe because I didn't really connect with Duval. I don't know.
All in all, this was a remarkable book that had a plot that captivated me from the first page until days after I finished it, characters that had their faults, but I couldn't help loving them anyways, and writing that was outstanding.
This book got.....
4.5 Butterflies
Beautiful, this is a great book.
However, there was some minor problems
However, there was some minor problems
Reccomened if you like: Fanesty, Assassin's, and a outstanding plot.
Thats my review, I hope you liked it.
Happy reading
