November 5, 2015

Review of Illuminosity by Vicky Savage


Release Date: May 16, 2o14
Publisher: self-published
Page Count: 562
Format: ebook
Genre: YA
Mystery, romance, and high adventure in parallel dimensions. In this highly anticipated conclusion to the Transcender Trilogy, Jaden Beckett faces her greatest challenges to date. Her choice is clear: leave the love of her life or face certain death. With Warrington Palace under siege, Jaden and Ryder are wrenched away from each other, as the powerful Inter-Universal Guidance Agency seeks Jaden's ultimate demise. Heartsick and alone, she begins a new chapter of life as a Transcender, only to discover that her fiercest battle has yet to come. Is Jaden safe anywhere in the galaxy? Or should IUGA ask itself that question, having underestimated her before? With her usual wit and tenacity, Jaden fights to discover her place in the multiverse, the true meaning of destiny, and the keys to the mystery of eternal love.



While Streaming Stars by Vicky Savage may have been the zenith of this trilogy, Illuminosity couldn't continue the trend and fell down in both quality and writing. While I had read the previous two books before, Illuminosity was a first for me and unfortunately ended up being severely lacking, leaving me unsatisfied with the end of this trilogy.

The world-building in Illuminosity went back to the quality of the first book and once again was only average at best. While the whole transcending element of the book was expanded upon it wasn't nearly enough to save the world-building, I was expecting (more like hoping) that we would get to see more worlds than the ones Vicky wrote into the book but alas, my hopes were dashed again. On the bright side, the descriptions of the existing places and the few new ones were pretty good and slightly made up for the rest of the lackluster world-building. My complaint from the previous two books continue over to this one as well, the other two domes are barely shown and not given the spotlight they deserve. While it's too late to add more about them to the trilogy at this point, a short story about the early days of the domes or just some insight into them would help save the trilogy as being remembered as disappointing.

While the character quality in this trilogy has mostly stayed the same through all three books they've always been better than the world-building. With mostly older characters from the other books and a few new ones like the Ryder on the Transcender world Vicky manages to once again keep the character quality the same. One of the biggest annoyances I had with the other books was the overwhelming romance between Jaden and Ryder and thankfully it's much less overwhelming in Illuminosity. After the improvements of Streaming Stars I had hopes that Vicky Savage would finish off the trilogy with her best book yet but as I'm sure you're all aware by now, that's far from the case here.

The amount of self-published books I read is very very small and this trilogy is an example of why, while a few of them are like hidden gems that end up being pretty good; most of them end up being average or bad. Vicky Savage gave it a go but to me her trilogy will always be remembered as average at best. Illuminosity may be a good choice for people who like romance, universe traveling, and self-published books.

3/5 - OK book


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