Review: Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

Untold (The Lynburn Legacy #2) by Sarah Rees Brennan

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Released: August 29th 2013

My Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Find it on Goodreads

Free from bonds, but not each other

It’s time to choose sides… On the surface, Sorry-in-the-Vale is a sleepy English town. But Kami Glass knows the truth. Sorry-in-the-Vale is full of magic. In the old days, the Lynburn family ruled with fear, terrifying the people into submission in order to kill for blood and power. Now the Lynburns are back, and Rob Lynburn is gathering sorcerers so that the town can return to the old ways.

But Rob and his followers aren’t the only sorcerers in town. A decision must be made: pay the blood sacrifice, or fight. For Kami, this means more than just choosing between good and evil. With her link to Jared Lynburn severed, she’s now free to love anyone she chooses. But who should that be? (from Goodreads)

Untold was...Untold was...guys, I don’t even know what to say. Sarah Rees Brennan has once again left me speechless. I feel like I need treatment for this traumatic reading experience. Someone needs to teach me how live my life again. What is with these endings? Why does Sarah do this to us? What is happiness? I don’t know anymore!

Kami. That girl. I can’t tell you how much I adored her. Even when she was hurting, she still managed to be fantastically hilarious. If there were such a thing as a sarcasm competition, she would so win (or she would at least tie with Angela). And she was, I think, a great friend. As well as being willing to do pretty much anything to protect her friends, the whole situation with Holly and Jared – she handled that so well in my opinion. She was still trying to get over the loss of her link with Jared, with losing the comforting voice she’d had in her head her whole life, and was still trying to work out how she really felt about it all, and yet she didn’t get angry or shout at anyone even though she was actually really upset and I just felt for her so much! I just wanted her to be happy. But this was an SRB book and we know from past experience that characters are only ever happy for so long...

ANGELA AND HOLLY, MY PRECIOUSES. I said in book one that Angela probably matched my personality type the most, and oh I loved her in this book. She had so many quoteworthy moments, and I just loved her general hatred of other people. And she was struggling with trying to be friends with Holly again in this book... Holly! Holly, Holly Holly! I loved her and everything, she was so friendly and kind and awesome, and I get she was having a hard time going through changes and trying to accept stuff, but at some point I was certain that she had to see that she and Angela were PERFECT together. I ship them so hard. And Jared and Kami of course, but that is a whole ‘nother story...

Speaking of Jared. Jared. WHY WAS HE SO UGHFBDGEIBDNfbvnvjhgbVnvdVdrunvd9v924ubn. Did he not realise at how one minute he seemed all caring and funny and sweet and the next minute he was like “BURN IN HELL FOREVER MORTALS OF THIS FOOLISH REALM!” WHY did he and Kami spend so much time dancing around each other not talking about their feelings? PEOPLE SHOULD TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS. It was so agonising to see him think things that weren’t true and feel needlessly upset and hurt (and vice versa for Kami) and I just wanted him and Kami to be together and live happily ever after and all evil things could just GO AWAY and leave my Jami alone. You know what was cool, though? The bromance with Ash. You could tell they didn’t really hate each other. They were family and even though Jared relentlessly made fun of Ash, they were bros (ahem).

I wasn’t massively fond of Ash, but I did feel sorry for the poor guy. It seemed nobody liked him best. His own mother was distant and sometimes even cruel and seemed to like Jared better, Kami clearly preferred Jared no matter what she said, he didn’t really even register on Holly’s radar, Angela basically hated everyone and he was “everyone” and Jared never seemed to take him seriously (though their relationship did improve later on). He was constantly being told he wasn’t good enough by his family and I don’t know, it felt like someone was kicking a puppy.

Rusty. Rustyyyy my friend. I have a feeling he was hiding some secrets I would certainly like to know. Especially concerning Kami. But he was awesome in Untold, and was on Kami’s side and trusted her wholeheartedly and was willing to defend her. Gotta say, Kami sure was a lucky girl to know so many amazing people (let’s just forget about the whole evil sorcerer trying to kill her thing for a moment while we appreciate this).

Plot-wise, Kami and co. were up to their usual shenanigans trying to figure out what Rob Lynburn was up to and what he might do next, SRB definitely delivered with book two being the “make out” book, Aunt Lillian was looking down on mere non-magical folk and doing her own thing, revelations! about several things and people, Rob Lynburn was crazy-evil and OMG WTF WAS THAT ENDING WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT SO LONG FOR BOOK THREE AFTER EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED WITH JARED AND ASH AND I CAN’T TAKE IT I FEEL LIKE THIS SERIES IS MY OXYGEN AND IT’S BEING TAKEN AWAY FROM ME WHHHHY.

Book three. I need it.

Overall, you have not experienced bookish pain and anxiety unless you have read an SRB book. Read this series. Join us as we wait in agony together for the third book!