Ascend: A Trylle Novel Kindle Edition

I enjoyed reading this series quite well. Hocking does a wonderful job with cliffhangers at the end of each chapter that encourage you to keep reading. I found this feature most-discouraging when I was running late to class and still reading =). I thought the history of the trolls was well-introduced and not too overwhelming. I am very glad that she explained things without going "Encyclopedia Brittanica" on us and overwhelming her readers with too much information. You also learn about things as the protagonist does, which makes this a very natural read.About Wendy...I liked how Hocking developed her from the beginning through to the end, and I found her personality pretty believable considering her circumstances. There were several points in all three books where I found myself relating to her.****SPOILER... PLEASE DO NOT READ SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK!!!****Loki & Wendy...I understand what other reviewers mean when they wonder how Wendy ended up with Loki, but I REALLY appreciate the risk Amanda Hocking takes in writing it that way. Finn is a wonderful character... In my opinion, he is one of the most developed characters in the series. It would not have been "too easy" for him to end up with Wendy, but I think it would have compromised a lot of the growth that Wendy went through. Wendy from the 1st & 2nd book would likely have ended up with Finn, but the Wendy from the 3rd book? Nope. She realizes that Finn is very loyal to his duties, and he believes a little too much in the hierarchy, even though that puts him at the bottom. Finn was not going to change his mind any time soon about the strict traditions surrounding who was allowed to marry whom.Loki doesn't really come out of nowhere in my opinion. He doesn't have a really strong purpose in the series until the 3rd book. I like that he's playful and flirty, and downright vulgar (for a princess anyway...). He does not seem like a good fit at all. But Finn, even with his low status, is proper and strict about the rules. He breaks them occasionally, but regrets it soon after.I began to fall in love with Loki as "Wendy's love-interest" when he became protective of her... against anyone and everyone. Even though he was nervous about confronting her father, he still helped her, never leaving her side. He didn't baby her and instead, believed in her abilities. I think he was a good compliment to her character.My Suggestions for improvement...I found the use of adverbs, especially when used in dialogue, to be a bit excessive. Though they can be effective, I think they mark the fear of the writer being anxious that he/she is not conveying the clearest message through the characters. I'll use a generic example (not one from her book)... If I were to write: "Get over here!" Jacob yelled angrily... in the context of a heated discussion between Jacob and Mark, it would likely be realistic... yet unnecessary. Readers can often figure out from context alone how people are saying or doing things without needing adverbs to tell them. Just writing: "Get over here!" Jacob yelled... would likely be sufficient. When you get rid of unnecessary modifiers, the sentences have more conviction.However... I understand that many writers enjoy the use of adverbs because they more clearly communicate what you, as the writer, feels when writing that section. Look at how many "unnecessary adverbs" I have in this review. I overuse them too, lol. (I'm such a hyprocrite, right?) No.. but really... It's something I struggle with when I write short stories and even now, as I work on my own novel. Even though it's hard to take those descriptive words out (and only the one's that aren't necessary... I'm not entirely anti-adverb or anti-adjective)... I often find that once I remove them, I really don't miss them. The context makes them "there" even when they aren't typed into the story.One other perk of removing extra adverbs, especially in dialogue after "He said, she said..." is that the dialogue seems to take off in real-time. This is especially useful in fast-paced conversations, like in highly emotional sections. In dialogue, the writer must trust that the CHARACTERS can take over and communicate to the reader how they feel, without too much interaction from the text beyond the quotation marks. In other words, let the dialogue speak for itself. Often times, this doesn't mean changing much in the way of the dialogue itself... just making sure the context and situation surrounding the interaction is clear enough.Then... all you have to do is trust your reader, and you're good to go!I very much enjoyed reading this series. I think the author has done a wonderful job keeping the story consistent, yet not boring or predictable. It's a wonderful read!

Spoiler Alert. This review contains spoilers. Consider yourself warned. This review is mainly for readers seeking enlightenment of what I believe happened in this book (mainly what went wrong). I wish to state beforehand that this is a good book and it isn't that expensive for kindle so do not refrain from buying it just because of what I say in the following review.I just finished the Trylle trilogy in less than three days, that is close to one thousand words and I most likely didn't pick up on everything. I wanted to know how many pages it was because I read it on the kindle, which by the way is awesome, and when I was snooping around amazon to check it out, I found some very interesting reviews, and I thought I would throw my own light on the story. I thought it was a very good series, though it was a little ... messy.First, I would like to say that they are good books and I find little reason someone shouldn't read them, of course I still considered This World We Live In, the combining book of Life As We Knew It and The Dead and The Gone, by Sussane Pfeffer (hope I'm spelling that right) to be an okay book, and for those of you who have read it you probably know why I bring it up, for those of you who haven't it has the worst ending ever. The Trylle trilogy is a very good series, it is very individual and different to most books I have read, I haven't read all of the Twilight books but what I did read of them I thought it was boring, sorry you Twilight fans, but I thought I'd bring it up so some other reviewers didn't get angry at my previous sentence. But, as much as I liked the books, I will admit they have a few flaws.I think that Wendy should have used her abilities more often, especially her persausion, and that the Willa Matt relationship seemed sort of pointless, that the ending was weak, and that all of the characters should have been in it including Rhys and Rhiannon, but I agree with other reviewers that the biggest flaw was Wendy's relationshipssss. I think that the author did lose control of it but I think that the trouble wasn't completely in the 'twist', I think it was actually the fact that the author set up some sort of love pentagon, which didn't work.In most books that I read they have a love triangle in them along with a little action, a little drama, and just a bit of tragedy. But in this book most of that fell apart. The action wasn't really there, there wasn't actually that much fighting, and I was really expecting the last fight to last a little longer, it was actually sort of bland. The drama in this was good but it dominated everything and you have to balance the elements of the story. The tragedy was... bad, there was a little tragedy with Finn, but he always left so it didn't work out so well, and the tragedy with Loki (where he died) only lasted long enough for her to defeat Oren and I thought that should've been done differently, why didn't she just pluck one of the swords of the wall with her mind and fling it at his head or better yet both; other than that the only real tragedy was when Elora died but everyone knew that was coming. The worst part was what I call the love pentagon.The love pentagon all centers around Wendy, she is #1 in it, and in this pentagon is Finn, Loki, Tove, and Rhys (the last two might not make as much sense but Tove was engaged/married to her, and Rhys had a crush on her in the first book that irratated Finn so I thought I'd add him in there, too). I think that the author just made it too confusing to really get attached to any one of these characters, except possibly Finn, but she framed him as a jerk, sort of as a Farid (Inkheart) type character, and so if you liked Wendy you couldn't also like FInn. Loki just sort of popped up as the arrogant, cocky weirdo who falls in love with her and then she falls in love with him but it was set up really, really, really, really, really poorly. Tove was sort of the person who she was stuck with to marry but then they decided to get divorced like 5 days after they had their wedding and I thought that was ridiculous. Plus Rhys had a crush on her for the first book and that seemed pointless too.To sum up the books they were good but they were messy.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!Oh my freakin' god! I absolutely loved this book! To be honest, I didn't think I would because I had a feeling that nothing would go the way I wanted it to, and it didn't, but it was perfect! I still think Wendy is one of the strongest characters I've ever read about. She had to deal with so much in this book, like marrying a guy she didn't love, dealing with her mother dying, trying to fight to save her kingdom and fighting to change the way the kingdom is run. She's fierce and strong-willed and I love that about her. Her strength is shown through how she deals with her mother's death and how she realises that she has very little time to mourn as she has her kingdom to save and she manages to put her feelings about her mothers death to the side for the time being to focus on saving her people.She also had to deal with her feelings for Finn and Loki. Oh, Finn. Oh, Loki. I loved them both and I found it really hard to start with to imagine her with Loki because I was so set on her being with Finn, but after reading this book and seeing Wendy and Loki's relationship develop, it's clear that they're perfect for each other. I love how he shows her how much he cares about her and doesn't put anything in front of his love for her, unlike Finn. Wendy is crowned Queen hours after her mother dies (and Tove becomes King) and they start to work very quickly to plot to take down the King of the Vittra. Wendy had to fight her father (The Vittra King) to save her kingdom and with the help of her friends and her people, they invade the Vittra territory. Wendy faces the King and then he has his hobgoblin things bring in Loki and he stabs him in the heart in front of Wendy. It's at this moment that Wendy realises that she's at her most powerful when she's upset and angry and she harnesses this power to distract the King so she can kill him. Sarah (the Kings wife) helps Wendy to save Loki. I actually had a tear in my eye when he died because he had just started to grow on me and I'd realised how perfect he was for Wendy, but they manage to save him so everything's fine! This stops the war between the Vittra and the Trylle and they're finally at peace.At the end of the book, there's a bonus short story which explains everything that's happened in the past year and a half: Wendy and Loki got married and have a little boy called Oliver; Tove admitted he's gay and is in a relationship with a Markis called Bain; Finn found love with a girl called Mia and her daughter Hanna and they are expecting a son; Matt and Willa are finally together (even though she had to give up her Marksinna title) and, even though there was a lot of things in this book that I didn't want to happen, it was definitely a perfect ending to the series and I absolutely loved it. The way it ended was so much better than I had imagined.That's why I'm giving this book 5/5 stars.

An awesome book but the story left me wanting more. I mean the story comes to a natural conclusion but its too neatly tied up if you know what I mean, hence the 4 stars. So I've started the next on my list, which is The Kanin Chronicles again by Amanda Hocking. The book I'm reading is a trilogy in one book but you can purchase these individually if you'd prefer. In these books you are introduced to more Trylle family, which are more like 2nd or 3rd very distant cousins who have their own kingdom n customs. I've got high hopes for these 3 books.

The 'Trylle' trilogy has been an amazing set of books to read right from the first page of the first book and a reader couldn't ask for a more satisfying ending. The imagination and skill put into writing the series is amazing and each book has kept me hooked all the way through. After reading the first chapter of ' Switched' it's not hard to believe I ploughed through the trilogy in 2 days as the action and romance keeps a reader enticed at every turn. It isn't boring and cliche (except when you want it to be) and any reader that isn't surprised by the way Hocking reveals things throughout the book and, ultimately, ends the book is most likely a genius (or Amanda Hocking herself). I would recommend the books and author to anyone in want of a good read. The novels have everything you could ask for and more. A satisfying and enjoyable endings expected I promise...you won't be disappointed =)

(SPOILER WARNING: reveals certain key elements of the plot)I have now read all three books in the series, and in my opinion, they decline in quality as you read them.The first one, when I read it, was good enough; a little easy and frequently resorting to poor and undetailed language, but with a plot that did not fall apart as soon as you looked at it.The second, I was annoyed at how Wendy manages to escape from Ondarike so easily, it really seemed just to be a way for the author to A: insert Loki into the story, and B: take up some more pages.Having always liked Tove, I was satisfied with her engagement to him, since it at least had some depth and reason. At this point, I knew that she wouldn't be with him forever, though, and I was leaning towards the prospect of her marrying Finn in the end, as the books up to now had done a lot with building their relationship.In Ascend, I felt the plot really started to go downhill. Elora's death was anticlimactic and turns out to be pretty much the only protagonist's death in the entire trilogy that is named. The others all feature in stories or unnamed happenings (such as the Vittra attack in the first book) and despite many of the characters often being in near-death situations, I never felt any real excitement because I knew that the chances of any of them dying were very low indeed.The climax was a battle in Ondarike. Turns out it was pretty much the shortest battle in history, ending when Wendy gives Oren a headache and cuts off his head after feeling nothing more than `Really Pissed Off' about the fact that Loki has just been killed (but don't worry! He'll come back to life later!)There was a lot of repetition in this trilogy, and after a whole book building up Wendy and Finn's relationship and another two where they repeatedly share inappropriately described moments, I'd have thought that their relationship would lead to somewhere, or at least that the author would be able to draw a decent conclusion. In the third book, it was like she realised too late that she had too many people who Wendy was having a relationship with and did a poor job of stitching it together. The ending was far too much of a `Happy ever after.'I give this book two stars because I did not immediately throw it in the bin (though I might now.)If you want to know the ending of this trilogy, ask a friend who's read it. They can tell you the whole plot better than the book itself can.

A stunning conclusion to an amazing trilogy! A shame this had to come to an end, but it did not disappoint. Wendy's love interests change through the series as her character changes and the twists and turns of this book aid the final developments of her character. We see Wendy change from a spoilt child to a struggling teenager, to an unwilling princess, to a concerned Queen and her relationship with Tove and Loki is explored thoroughly in this book and the conclusion satisfied my need to know what happens to all the characters in the end.