So I’ve now finished Rogue, the second book in Julie Kagawa’s Talon Series. Kagawa has moved on from a YA light-hearted romance feel of Talon to the much more serious Rogue*. With break outs, break ins, a chase and action I was much more excited.
Rogue greatly improved the lack of action from the first book. In hot pursuit, our protagonists infiltrated enemy lines and fought both Talon and St George throughout the book. As expected, Kagawa managed to write the action in a way that drives the imagination. I can actually see how the dragons fight, even though it’s a difficult image to conjure. The book also didn’t have too many filler chapters, a lot of the scenes were relevant to the plotline.
On the other hand, there were a lot of times where whole paragraphs were reiterating what happened in the past book. As I was reading them consecutively, this made some sections overly boring. Although it would be helpful for those taking more time between books maybe?
One of my favourite parts were seeing Agent Cobalt’s flashback POV chapters. I’m really glad it was a show instead of tell about the Talon organisation. The backstory of Riley and Wes was also a really important aspect which I was happy to read about. Hopefully we will have similar chapters for Garret in the next book, Soldier, to find out about St George.
Another thing was the different POV’s and the flashbacks got confusing sometimes. Basically at the moment, I’m quite stressed so I want a relaxed reading. If I’m not focusing enough, I forget which character I’m reading. So many times I thought ‘Wait that doesn’t sound like Riley’ only to realise I’m reading Ember’s chapter. Also most of the time, the characters were together so the shift in POV wasn’y really needed.
Another great thing was we actually got to see more dragons in this book. In Talon you only really saw three at the very end which just wasn’t enough really. The dragon’s are also written well as singular characters. They dont all seem to be the same ‘monsters’ that are described by St George although they are still fierce. You also got to see them as part of the organisation through Dante’s POV.
The biggest pet peeve I have with Rogue though, is that there’s still a love triangle. I’m not fully sure how long it’s going to last in the series. But I am begging, please, dont let it last until the last book. I have no emotional attachment to this love triangle at all, and I just dont care what happens with it. I just dont want to read about it.
Overall, I think Rogue is an improvement to Talon as it seems much more action, adventure and most of all fantasy orientated. It has also picked up the pace so much that I dont keep putting the book down.