The Book of Fours

Buffy and Faith must unite with their predecessors, Kendra and India to defeat a being called the Gatherer.
I was excited for more back story on Kendra and to learn anything at all about India, but the least confusing and irritating thing about this book turned out to be that India is pronounced In-DEE-ah, and that was pretty darn both. Between the massive amounts of dreams, diary entries, and flashbacks to people and places that barely even begin to explain the Gatherer, there is also intrigue at the Watcher’s Council, involving two lady watchers who used to be involved romantically with Giles and Roger Zabuto (Kendra’s Watcher). Their relevance to the story was negligible, and certainly not worthy of the amount of exposition they both got. Also, the Gatherer has had three previous Servants, all of whom get a big chunk of the book for explanations of their evil-ness. Not to mention copious references to events in other tie-in novels Holder has written, which I, personally, had not already read, including things that blatantly contradict events in the television show. (One might argue that the contradictions happened in later seasons of the show, and may not have contradicted at the time the novel was written. I didn’t investigate it thoroughly. You can if you want.)
I generally enjoy these “extra episodes” of Buffy, and usually Nancy Holder is good at Buffy-speak, but I don’t buy people like middle-aged watchers in England or even previous Slayers using the convention. My personal theory is that Buffy and her friends talk like that, as well as people who have spent lots of time with them. Others do not. You will notice that Giles didn’t start speaking that way until mid-third season, and Joyce never did. You don’t see Angelus, Darla, Spike or Dru employing quirky turns of phrase in their televised flashbacks, either. It also kind of irks when the authors bring the language into their descriptive and otherwise non-dialogue paragraphs, but it’s a little more understandable when actively describing action between Buffy and her friends. It’s just not welcome in flashbacks or coming from people who have no business speaking that way, except that they are featured in a novel set in the universe of this show. I apologize for ranting about this, but I apparently feel strongly about it.
For a final verdict, I would recommend either reading copious amounts of Nancy Holder-penned Buffy novels prior to tackling this one, or skipping it altogether. Particularly if you are a hard-core fan-type. ( )