The Sweet Far Thing (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy) | Libba Bray

The Sweet Far Thing (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy) | Libba Bray | Fantastic End of Series

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The Sweet Far Thin...

	The Sweet Far Thing (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy) Libba Bray Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2007 - 832 pages average customer review:based on 121 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

All about Gemma

The last book in the trilogy of Gemma Doyle has twists and turns for the worse and the more worse. From having to deal with an addict of a father, an incompliant brother, a prohibited love, to people struggling over the power deep inside her. Not all stories have happy endings, including this one. Although Gemma goes through tough vigorous trials, so do her friends Felicity and Ann.

Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are coming to their last year at Spence Academy. Although not all of the girls well be entering their season to come. Miss Ann Bradshaw is going to be a full time nanny, while Gemma and Felicity will be; attending balls, rapped in gossip, and will be lead through the rest of their lives as though they were horses with blinders and they will not stand for it. In this outstanding literature by Libba Bray, these girls go through trials testing to the farthest degree their loyalty, friendships, desires, and their hearts truest ambitions.

Felicity is a warrior princess in her heart and does not want to enter into the suffocating threshold of conformity in the 1893 London society. As she struggles with inside demons and hearts desires, she also has to ward off nymphs, trackers, and all the rest of the creatures deep inside the Winterlands, all the mean while Ann is trying to find a way out of becoming a slave to the two brats at her uncle and aunt's home.

Miss Ann Bradshaw has an extraordinary talent, but is too timid and without having any money she is doomed to a life serving for those who do. But this will not settle with Felicity's ragging heart, and Gemma's hatred for entrapment, they will find a way to save her (or at least try).

This book was very intriguing in many ways, from the magic to the romance. I liked how Libba Bray used many metaphors to help us understand the meaning to what was going on. "We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead" (page 601). Another thing that the author, Libba Bray, did that I enjoyed was that she brought the plots points to a head. The book also moved at a decent speed, but not as fast as the other two in the trilogy did. If I had to choose a genre for this book, it would be fantasy, although, there is thrilling mystery, pulsating romance, and real facts to the historical plot of the literature.

I would recommend this book to young women who are intrigued to reading about forbidden love and lust, mysteries, and just fantasy stories that drag you into the tribulations of the characters. Because of all the different plots of this trilogy you would need to be a keen reader and insightful of what is to come, although in this book it takes so many twists and turns that you really wouldn't know which way is up and down.

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Fantastic End of Series

An intense, terrifying, journey and poignant end to a deliciously gothic series. I was delighted to see so many of the main characters triumph over their weaknesses--in their own time and their own ways. I never felt that the story was too long. There was some ambiguity with the details towards the end, and there were some terrible tragedies, but over all the writing quality was compelling, the characters were richly-drawn. and I was held captive until the bitter-sweet end. Fantastic read. One of my favorite YA Fantasy Series.

Did Kartik deserve his fate?

SPOILER WARNING.

Once I finished the final book in the series I was eager to go online and read everyone's thoughts on A Sweet Far Thing. I'm not going to summarize the story for you, nor am I going to provide a list of things I liked and disliked about the book. This review is for those of you who felt cheated by Kartik's untimely end. I, like many of you was heartbroken when Kartik died. Despite his presence being rather sporadic throughout the series, I too had grown rather attached to his character. I wanted Kartik to find his destiny, to confront his brother, and confess his love for Gemma. I expected all three of these events to happen in the final book. However, I knew that Gemma and Kartik would not have their happily ever after. I was not surprised in the least that they did not end up together (in the physical sense, that is). In the spiritual sense, well, that is something entirely different.

One of Bray's flaws when it comes to writing, is that there is never enough evidence to support her claims. Felicity was a character I had the largest issue with. Through out the course of the series we discover that she was sexually abused as a child and in love with her best friend Pippa. I did not foresee either of these revelations. There was no indication whatsoever that Felicity and Pippa shared feelings for one another other than intense friendship. Also, there are certain signs that indicate when a person has been abused and I just didn't recall anything from the text that eluded to Felicity's tortured past.

Kartik and Gemma's relationship, however, is an entirely different story. From the very beginning their destinies were intertwined. Both had experienced a great loss and both were expected to complete a difficult task. Many things brought them closer together and at the same time tore them even farther apart. Deep down both characters knew they wouldn't be together in the end. They had a common purpose but two entirely different fates. If you need proof, go back to the passages that detail Kartik's dreams/visions. Gemma was meant to die, and Kartik fulfilled his duty as a true member of the Rakshana by protecting his priestess. Kartik sacrificed himself so that Gemma could live and do what she was destined to do: bring magic back to the Realms. Otherwise, why did she come back from the dead? She could have taken the easy route and left the harsh reality behind and lived in paradise. They both made difficult choices, but they did what they believed to be right and they sacrificed a great deal. I for one believe that in the future Kartik and Gemma will find a way to be together. After all, Kartik isn't truly dead. He lives on in the realms and Gemma is apart of the realms, so in a sense, they will never be apart.

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TOO LONG!

The Sweet Far Thing was an unnecessarily long end to the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, a series that grabbed me with its excellent first book. Libba Bray could have shortened this book about 200 pages, and it still would have been boring. It was a great struggle finishing this book because it simply dragged from start to finish. However, the ending was unexpected, and so that's why this book isn't getting two stars from me. I also liked Bray's unique style of writing and way of twisting up the plot.

All in all, The Sweet Far Thing would have been good if it had been 200 pages shorter! Fans of the series, it would be better to wait for this book to come out in paperback or to borrow it from the library.

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