So, in about the span of a month, I've gone through the entire Mercy Thompson series released so far by Patricia Briggs. Listen, first off, I'll just say this isn't exactly highbrow fiction. Barring a handful of incidents spread throughout the series, it's largely what I can only assume, since I haven't read much, is standard urban fantasy in a lot of ways. Vampire, werewolves, fae, magic, etc. That said, I personally find this series super fucking fun.
Most of it has to do with Mercy, the main character obviously, who thankfully I love to death. She's a clever smartass who doesn't take no shit from nobody even when she's outnumbered and outgunned...which is almost always. It wins her a lot of respect throughout the series too in a way that doesn't feel cheap or forced. Heck, in most instances, it's more humorous than anything else how much she is respected. There's one character who hates her to the point of actively wanting to kill her, but after events I won't spoil, they end up in a situation involving another antagonist where they pretty much say, "listen, I hate Mercy more than anyone and I'm telling you that's probably a bad idea to underestimate her. I did once and it didn't work out for me."
It's not perfect though. The first few books have a very cheesy (in a bad way) love triangle going on. Thankfully, it's not front and center, but it pops up just enough to be annoying. What makes it worse though is that it kinda feels at odds with the Mercy we see in just about every other situation and based upon what she has to say about one of them in particular, it feels odd that there's even a love triangle to begin with. I got the impression very early on that she felt much more strongly about one of them than the other so the fact it was even a thing for like nearly three books was weird.
Other than that, there's a lot of deus ex machina going on here. Shit goes down and then something or someone saves the day in a way that really hasn't been established as even possible, but for me personally, the rest of stories leading up to and surrounding those moments are fun mysteries/thrillers with a little bit of action thrown in here and there.
Again, I don't think you'd be missing anything particularly special if you skipped this series. To me, it's a really tasty junkfood of books. You won't get much out of it, but meh, who cares, you just want something fun.
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