Genre:
Urban Fantasy
Synopsis:
A new fantasy adventure from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Veronica Rossi. For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does. Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can’t remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse. Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemen–Conquest, Famine, and Death–are brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence. They fail. Now–bound, bloodied, and drugged–Gideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he’s fallen for–not to mention all of humankind–he needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger. But will anyone believe him?
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My Take:
My oldest absolutely loves this book and has been pestering me since January to read it. I wanted to love it too. It’s a really cool concept! But I didn’t LOVE it. And it wasn’t until almost 2/3 of the way through that I really caught my stride and started to enjoy it. Why? Well, part of the struggle was the choice of storytelling format. The story starts in the present during a “debriefing” of sorts. Gideon pretty much tells most of the story. Not only was it a bit confusing because he kept thinking about characters we haven’t met in his story yet, but it was very scattered with a lot of “But I’ll tell you more about that later.” type scenes.
One of the other things that drove me nuts was that Gideon constantly ended sentences with blah, blah, blah, so. The author was consistent in the format, only using it with Gideon, which I appreciated because it indicated that it was an idiosyncrasy of his, not that the author didn’t know better. Still, it was incredibly grating on my nerves, particularly because of the frequency. I kind of hated Gideon just because of this. Well, not just because of this, but A LOT because of this. Why else didn’t I like him? Well, the insta-love/bickering/ flippity-floppity relationship he and Daryn have going on was really frustrating. 18 year old me would have given Gideon the boot for being so dang annoying. Seriously, I don’t know how Daryn puts up with him.
What did I like? I liked the concept (as I said.) I absolutely love Bas. He reminds me a lot of many of my guy friends from that time in my life. Much more chill and less obnoxious. I would’ve liked to see more of Marcus, he felt so one-dimensional and insignificant, which Death should never be. Jode also kind of got the shaft, as far as scene time. Which is a shame, because he was my son’s favorite. The “international incident” seemed kind of lame and anticlimactic, and the twist didn’t surprise me at all, which was a bit disappointing.
Would I read this again? Nah. Would I read the next book? Only if it’s told from one of the other characters’ perspectives. Then it might be worth reading. Shhh, don’t tell my son I said this! Would you like to learn more? Check it out on Amazon
Have you read Riders? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Until next time,
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