The Calling by Kelley Armstrong - Darkness Rising #2 Book Review

Maya Delaney's paw-print birthmark is the mark of what she truly is -a skin-walker. She can run faster, climb higher, and see better than nearly everyone else. Experiencing intense connections with the animals that roam the woods outside her home, Maya knows it's only a matter of time before she's able to Shift and become one of them. And she believes there may be others in her small town with surprising talents.

Now Maya and her friends have been forced to flee from their homes during a forest fire they suspect was deliberately set. Then they're kidnapped, and after a chilling helicopter crash, they find themselves in the Vancouver Island wilderness with nothing but their extraordinary abilities to help them get back home.

 

If the popularity of Kelley Armstrong’s YA is any indication, the new trend of stretching a weak plot over three books so you can call it a trilogy is, unfortunately, not going anywhere any time soon.  Darkness Rising is Armstrong’s second YA trilogy.  It reuses her Darkest Powers plot, follows the same formulas, and adds so much filler to make it stretch over three books that what little actual plot there is gets lost beneath the weight.

The Calling is the second book in this companion trilogy, and the last of Armstrong’s YA I’ll be reading for a while.  It wasn’t long ago that I was singing Kelley’s praises, almost willing to add her to my list of favorite authors.  You see, the woman can write.  She knows her characters, and knows how to make us like them.  She can spin a romance that is sweet and addictive without overpowering the story or activating our gag reflexes.  But after five books, that’s just not enough anymore.

I want some actual story progression.

Want to know what The Calling is about?  Maya and her friends survive a helicopter crash but are lost in a forest.  They walk around a lot.  And talk.  And encounter pointless obstacles that do nothing to further the story and only serve to eat up enough pages to call this a book.  There is a teensy tiny nugget of a story arc in all this wandering, which could easily have been summed up in two or three paragraphs.  And probably will be in the next book.  But other than that, this book is a waste of ink, a waste of pages, and a waste of time.

The characters are still likeable, which is really the only redeeming quality I could find.  I especially had a soft spot for Corey in this one; his wit was the cause of most of the few smiles I cracked while reading.  Maya and Daniel are consistent, and though Hayley reminds me a little too much of Tori from Darkest Powers, she’s better than a lot of popular YA side characters.  Rafe, though not in it too much, has that good bad-boy quality that will undoubtedly make him a fan favorite.

I know a lot of people love these books.  I get it; I really do.  The pages practically beg to be turned, and the characters have that rare returning-to-friends quality to them.  But I’d rather find that in a trilogy that also keeps me entertained in the story and is a bit less predictable.  I was able to overlook the weak plot in one of Armstrong’s trilogies; I’m not willing to be so forgiving the second time around.

The Calling - 2 out of 5 stars