Callum Hunt and the Diminishing Returns

I read the first book in the series and enjoyed it enough to pick up the rest of the books. Unfortunately, I got progressively more dissatisfied with the series as the books progressed. Part of the problem is that the further away the story got from a Harry Potter type story, which the authors established in the first book, the less interested I became in the books. I mean, I can read AU fanfics for free, you know? And this one wasn’t even that good of an AU fanfic. You know how sometimes an AU fic will start well, and you really enjoy it, but as it progresses it just loses everything about why you enjoyed it in the first place (basically, any connection to the original story)? Yea, this is like that. The other part of the problem is that the characters started doing things because the plot wanted them to. I call this the “who even needs motivations” problem. I do so namely because near the end of Book 3 I threw my hands up in the air and said “who even needs motivations” after a character did something completely out of the blue and contrary to the characterization that had been established FOR THREE BOOKS. I stand by my recommendation of the first book, it’s fun, but stay away from the rest of the series.

In order to discuss the second, third, and fourth books I am going to majorly spoil the ‘shocking’ reveal that happened at the end of the first book. It’s a huge plot point for the series, and the plots of the rest of the series depends on it. So if you haven’t read the first book and don’t want to be spoiled, you might want to skip the rest of this review. I don’t think knowing this information would ruin the reading of the first book, but I’m also pretty blasé about spoilers when it comes to books.

So, at the end of the first book it is revealed that the Enemy of Death, Constantine I’m-to-lazy-too-look-up-his-last-name, died during the battle of the Cave of Cold (or something like that), where Callum was the lone survivor. Now, when Call’s father found the poor baby and his dead wife, he also saw that his wife had scratched “kill the child” on the wall near where she died. It turns out that Constantine, using his special Chaos magic (which is heavily tied to the soul) knew that he was dying and put his soul into the body of Baby Callum, displacing the infant’s soul. So Call is in fact the Enemy of Death. Of course, he has no memories of that life and no real ties at all. I was intrigued by this, and I could see how the authors wanted to explore the nature of evil. This is revealed to Callum, and the reader, at the end of the first book. He is freaked out by it, and decides that he must be evil by nature and so keeps the information a secret. The fact that this secret doesn’t last beyond the second book is irrelevant.

So now that you know that information, the second book is mostly dealing with Callum’s paranoia that someone is going to figure out his secret. In fact, his father has given indications that he already knows and instead of IDK TALKING about it, there’s a bunch of secret keeping on both sides. This secret keeping simply spurs on Call’s paranoia and he decides that his father is going to kill him. And then his father does stuff, for Call’s protection (supposedly), except of course it’s all in secret, and it looks like dad’s gonna commit suicide. Call runs away and then OH GOSH halfway through the book, figures it out and decides he needs to save his dad so there’s an escape from school. And blah, blah, blah, things happen and Call’s secret is revealed to his buddies.

Book three starts with a murder, the book is about who actually did the murder. Except, that in the course of the investigation people completely forget about the murdered girl and it all becomes about hiding Call’s secret from the rest of the school. Plus there’s an insane reveal, about who actually did commit the murder, at the end and it just threw my hands up in disgust.

In book four, everyone knows Callum’s secret and his best friend has died and he’s going to fix that using the soul magic that The Enemy of Death was playing around with when he was, you know, THE BAD GUY. But of course, because it’s for a good reason Callum doesn’t think this way. And you guys, it’s been too long since I read this books and I only skimmed it so I don’t remember a whole lot about it.

Once again, don’t read these books. They just get progressively worse. The first book was fun, but honestly these books have made me retroactively question how much I actually enjoyed the rest of Holly Black’s work, they’re that bad.