Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNot quite what I was expecting....
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 6, 2011
I loved books 1 and 2 in this series, hated book 3, thought book 4 was just okay, and felt book 5 was pretty good (not as good as book 1 or 2, but better than 3 and 4). But despite my recent variable success with liking Mercy Thompson books, I like the writer's writing style in general (even if I'm not always thrilled by the plot outcome). So I was really, really excited for book 6 to come out. Finally it seemed, after 5 books, we'd learn more about walker's, Mercy's father, and who knew what else. Well, now I know. And it was much less satisfying than I anticipated. I didn't hate the book (and I think Briggs is too good of a writer for me to ever really hate anything she writes), but below is what I did not care for about River Marked. I warn you that it's kinda long and I may ramble.
**MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS BELOW** (read on at your own risk)
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Things I didn't like about River Marked:
** The characters we've gotten to know over the course of the last five books make cameo appearances in the first two chapters, including the much missed Stephan, then are gone for the rest of the book (except for one random phone call near the end of the book, right before the climax, that was kinda, "Btw, everyone's still alive back home") until the last chapter. Besides Mercy and Adam, the author introduces a completely new cast of characters. None of whom I could connect to or relate with. I really didn't care if they all died. At first I was happy that Adam and Mercy were getting away from life back home to spend uninterrupted time together (without vampires, fae, old college roommates, crazy wolves, etc. keeping them apart). The wedding scene was very nicely done (especially Bran walking Mercy down the aisle), and it was nice to get a chance to see Mercy's sisters in the flesh. I felt that Mercy and Adam deserved a relaxing honeymoon to themselves. Halfway through I was wishing they were back in the Tri-Cities.
** One irritating aspect of the story was the author's pressing need to describe each character who came on the scene in overwhelming detail (down to the type of earrings and shoes they were wearing and how they styled their hair), even if they were only going to be in one scene. To me, most of the characters in this book were "throwaway characters" and I wouldn't expect to see them in future books in this series. So I really didn't care to learn that much about them. So, I skimmed when I came across the many full-outfit descriptions. It seemed like the author was doing this in an attempt to honor Native American culture in describing different tribes and their native dress and physical characteristics. But it was still tedious and boring to read about. No matter how much authenticity the author feels this kind of thing adds to the story, if it's unnecessary (and boring) it should be cut. So despite all of the detail, I found it hard to keep all of the new characters straight (due to the sheer volume of them), and very quickly stopped trying to. They became faceless voices in dialogue with Adam or Mercy. I don't even remember many of their names. And I'm sure this isn't the result the author was intending.
** Some of the weakness of a first-person narrative also showed through in this book. When a story is told in first-person then the reader cannot see or experience anything the narrator didn't see firsthand. To get around that limitation in this book, Mercy suddenly has visions of other people doing stuff she wasn't there for. I felt this addition unnecessary, but it didn't bother me overly much.
** The whole "Coyote" plotline, and Mercy finding out about her father, was confusing and kinda ridiculous. Very anti-climactic how she ended up learning about him and other walkers, considering the fact that I've been wanting this information since book one. Plus we learn that Mercy is apparently super, extra special, even among walkers. What would the world do without her? God only knows. Sorry for the sarcasm, but this was just a bit too "Mary-Sueish" for me.
** I also felt too much history (real or fake) was included in this book. The characters did so much talking and everything seemed to lead to Mercy hearing yet another Indian tale. Most of which seemed to have no bearing on the plot at all. After the first five to ten stories it just felt like unnecessary filler. The book (and certain new characters in particular) tried too hard to be "mystical" and it just came off as trite and annoying. Plus, there was a lot of convoluted theology that I didn't agree with in this book. But the bottom line is, I wanted less talking, less stories, less characters speculating at each other, and more action.
** Worst of all for me was the actual plot of the story. The buildup for the main plotline with the "river devil" took too long, and I felt removed somehow. Mercy and Adam, instead of enjoying their honeymoon, get dragged into this river devil non-sense. But I could never figure out why, when they first found out something was wrong, they didn't just say, "hey, for once, let's just let someone else handle the monster." Come to think of it, Mercy did ask Adam this very question. And the only reason for staying was b/c some fae "prophesied" that they should be there. So Uncle Mike contrived to get them there, though he was very clear about adding that they shouldn't think they were doing the fae a favor or anything. It was just the fae that sent them there to deal with an issue that involved fae ("otterkin") somehow. But it's not a favor. Ok, whatever.
** In the final analysis, there appeared to be so many useless, or overly drawn out, scenes inserted by the author (I've noticed this some in past books, but it was just overwhelming in this one): the trip to the museum to look at baskets and talk art, the trip to see the rock paintings, the fight in Wal-Mart with the otterkin woman, meeting Coyote's sisters, plus the thousand and one stories interlaced.
** After about two hundred pages it became very hard to find the motivation to keep going and I put the book down many times. Normally as I reach the end of a book it's bittersweet. I can't wait for the conclusion, but don't want the story to end. In this book I just found myself wanting to give long-suffering sighs of endurance.
** Even as the river devil kept killing people (including children) I felt no sense of urgency. Because Mercy mostly saw things in a vision and not firsthand. It was just, "Oh, the river devil killed some more people... *sigh* I can't wait for this book to be over." The battle scene between Mercy and the river devil was well done (for the most part). I just didn't like this plot, and there wasn't a strong secondary plot to make up for it. It took me four days to read this book (with a bit of skimming in the last quarter of the book, until it finally got to the climax). That's twice as much time as I was expecting. I actually thought I'd devour this book in one setting. Maybe taking two days to read it, as a concession to adult responsibilities (like sleeping and going to work). I definitely didn't expect to struggle through it, looking for things to distract myself from reading it.
I know it seems like I've been really hard on this book, but there was just so much included that I didn't like. I think it was because the actual plot was a little thin. So all of this extra stuff got included to "fill it out." Without the fluff, I think this book could have done without a hundred pages easily, and been a better, cleaner story. I can't even say that this was just a transitional book, because I have no idea where the story is going now. So in the end, this book was just 3-3.5 stars. I'll probably read the next book in the series. But I'll likely be checking it out from the library instead.
