Competitions

Is definitely a bridging novel and somewhat lacklustre. The five main characters have to work on survival both magically and physically, the dice are loaded against them with the society they live in and things keep getting harder. Somewhat repetitive and you can see where the characters could have learned something by talking to each other but the biggest problem they all have is who to trust when they're all pitted against each other. If this was a standalone I probably wouldn't keep it but I'll wait until after reading the sequence before deciding about whether or not to keep them.

(Alistair) This somewhat delayed booklog concerns Competitions, the sequel to Convergence, the book which I took with me over our recent Chicago trip, and this being the book which ordinarily I wouldn't have picked up quite so close to reading the immediate previous volume, but which seemed like an easy choice on arriving back.

Now, that's the administrivia done with. And really, the first thing I'd say is to flip back and read my review of Convergence, because most of what I had to say about it applies to Competitions as well.

That said, this series - while it remains a fun read, is irritating in a few ways. While I can understand the reasons for the fivefold symmetry in events, it does get kind of repetitive. Some of the relationships show more are making me glarf in much the same way Robert Jordan's relationships-of-perpetual-misunderstanding-and-squabbling do, and desiring of knocking characters' heads together.

And in this book we meet the villains in a rather more on-screen way. Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're one-dimensional, but they're all so very, very moustache-twirlingly, cacklingly, volitionally evil it's hard to say that they're terribly three-dimensional, either.

And yet I still am enjoying it enough to want to read the next book, thanks to characters that remain interesting and plot that remains intriguing. It's just that... enh. Stuff.
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Nice book, not too complicated, sympathetic characters. Again a bit repetitive at times, and it would be nice if some of the characters would just talk to each other and work out their problems, but enjoyable despite of that.

Part 2 of the Blending series remains slow paced and repetitive. New characters are introduced but they are shallow villains at this point.

library book read 7/8/2025

Not that great of a series.