Take the Key and Lock Her Up

Author: Ally Carter
Series: Embassy Row #3
Rating: 2 / 5 stars
Verdict: Bury

Nothing happens in a vacuum.  There is a cause and effect to everything.

Oh Grace, what happened to your story?  I remember reading All Fall Down and loving it.  It was fresh, original, a little too far out there and yet somehow almost believable at the same time.  The characters were likable and realistic enough.

And now.

And now.

Embassy Row is a roller coaster that starts with a ninety degree drop and then just winds and turns until it eventually winds down and ends.  After All Fall Down, the series slowly declines to this mess of an ending.  Take the Key and Lock Her Up (which isn’t even a title I can appreciate) is full of twists and turns, but they don’t seem plausible, in character, or neat.  Everything about this novel feels messy and not really thought out.  The prose is clumsy and lazy without poise and nothing about this story – the characters, the plot, the ending – will stay with you after the end.  Even the romance, for the readers who are Grace and Alexei to the end – can except a confusing, sloppy run with a bit of a cliched love triangle thrown in just because.

While I really liked All Fall Down (I even bought it), this is a series I’d skip in the end.  My copy of All Fall Down is in the donate book for the library now sadly.