The Return (Titans, Book 1)

By J L Armentrout

Rating

3 stars+

Date Read

9/5/16 - 12/5/16

Age Group

17+

General Thoughts

The Fates are cackling their bony asses off…

Another book on Gods, Sentinels, Hematoi, Daimons and Titans, this time around starring Seth and taking place a year after the the showdown with Ares. A year after he lost Alex for good. A year after he bargained his life and soul to ensure her happy ever after.

I've put off reading this way unexplainably long.

The beginning is awkward, between Seth's utter insensitivity and lack of boundaries and Josie's irrelevance complete lack of social skills but J L obviously quickly slips back into the pattern of writing about her (our?) favourite characters and the book only gets better from then on out.

Still, for a much anticipated sequel to the Half Blood series, it didn't quite meet my expectations...

Main Characters

Josie

Likeable. Obviously a little dumb or insane, that's not up for discussion; no sane person would fall in love with someone like Seth (then again, didn't we all, so I guess we're a bit insane ourselves). She is exactly what Seth needed but didn't know it: sweet, cute, forgiving, strong but vulnerable and utterly innocent. And a bit childish and self centered. Her experience in the mortal world certainly did not do anything to prepare her for the destiny that is thrown at her and facing off titans is not how she imagined her her life to unfold.

Seth

Forward, raw, honest, sarcastic, at times brutally cruel and violent, heartbroken (not quite, that would entail caring), arrogant. But we already knew that. Although you'd think losing his other half to a pure blood would've hurt his machismo, he is still the same Seth that intrigued us in Half blood, that annoyed us in Pure, that we fell in love with in Apollyon and that we hurt for in Sentinel just more withdrawn and so even more of a mystery to Josie than he was to Alex. It was really fun watching him try and act humane for her sake, refraining from being insensitive and forcing out standard, basic pleasantries. It was also plenty fun watching him fall in love.

“He was another student. I think he…he lived on the seventh floor.” “He’s nothing now.” I flinched, my stomach unsettled. A muscle thrummed along his jaw. “That was a bit insensitive of me.” There was a brief pause, the next words sounding almost forced out of him. “Was he your friend?”

Seth

Thoughts as they formed while reading:

By page 67

Josie is pathetic, socially inept, awkward and insecure with bad cognitive thinking skills. She likes to state the obvious and says things aloud that she should just be thinking like whining or making random comments. Her cousin, meaning Alex, was all kickass and confident and knew how to restrain Seth (who, btw, has virtually no self restraints) and keep him at arms length when he overstepped basic boundaries, like personal space. This Josie has no idea how to deal with him and always shows her awe at his looking like a Greek god (he is a related to Greek Gods but then again so is she) and being able to control the elements thereby needlessly feeding his ego.

I guess it wasn't possible to like both Aiden and Seth since they are complete opposites. Where Aiden was intelligent and stoic and gentle Seth is shallow and violent and raw. And this is most definitely his book.

Also their connection... So there's the physical attraction. But beyond that? It sounds like J.L Armentrout is trying way too hard to make Seth slowly fall in love with Josie, with him thinking how tough and mentally strong she was and how well she was dealing with everything, like his precious Alex had. Seriously? Mental strength? The girl couldn't speak to him when they first met, she just stayed there sitting on the ground (yes, she had tripped and fallen) staring up at him, with her mouth gaping open at his tall muscular figure and weird amber eyes. Then she'd run away from him because, let's face it, he was acting creepy but then when she saw him again, she just got distracted by his eyes and started staring some more. And instead of thinking that he was the one mentally unstable (because he really, really didn't handle the explaining-to-an-innocent-naive-clueless-college-girl-she's-a-demigod-direct-decendant-of-the-Greek-Pantheon speech well) she thought she was the one hallucinating and ran away. Again.

And she rambles a lot. Noting how many things they have in common like the fact that they both grew up friendless with distant mothers. Like "Oh, Seth, you didn't have any friends growing up either? That must have been so lonely..." And "My mom said that here must have been a reason her life ended when mine began. But she loved me. It sounds like yours didn't so I'm sorry." She actually said that to him, no kidding.

So no, not mentally strong, Sethie. Your girl is dumb and talks a lot about nothing, gets easily distracted, states obvious things and asks stupid questions. You just can't get over the fact that she vaguely resembles Alex.

Josie's not supposed to be blond but whatever

By page 120

Before the book reaches the halfway point though, Josie gets a lot better. Where she started all awkward and lonely and occasionally hysterical (now seems kind of understandable coming to consider her home life and childhood - the kid with the teen schitzo mom in a small judgemental village can't have the perfect social skills, right?), as she's getting to know the riddle that is Seth we get to see a different side of her, funny and sweet, and she deals with everything that's thrown at her well enough. The change in her takes place subtly and her mourning helps not just to ground her but also to reveal her staggering similarities with Alex. And so as she finally reaches the South Dakota Uni she grows out of her annoyingly lame comments (for the most part), throws herself into training an gets to know Seth better.

Oh, and when he starts being protective of her... I was dying waiting for that part. The all powerful Apollyon raging against anyone who would hurt a hair on her head, all aggressive energy and vengeful eyes, seeking to make up for her vulnerability (after all, although she is stronger than him in theory, her powers were bound at birth and she's never learnt to fight).

But still he can't find the words to soothe her pain. Nothing he could ever say would make the situation better anyway, he's gonna have to leave her for good when they reach to covenant in South Dakota, right? That's his mission, to deliver her safely there and then he's free again. Free to do the Gods' bidding that is. According to the pact he made for Alex's sake...

History is so on repeat.

All in All

Anyway, the book just gets better and better after the awkward beginning, especially when Luke and Deacon finally appear (who, by the way, can make any book better just by standing there and grinning). It's like a sequel of Half blood without being a sequel of Half blood (which is basically what I was in for before I got a tad disappointed with the first few chapters).

Songs Ride Like The Wind cross
Drive Britta phillips

XOXO

Aggie Pearson