Liviania’s review of Infamous (Chronicles of Nick, Book 3) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Young adult urban fantasy published by St. Martins Griffin 13 Mar 12
Sherrilyn Kenyon may be famous for her Dark-Hunters series, but I don’t think I’ve read more than two books from the series. I have, on the other hand, been following and enjoying the spinoff series Chronicles of Nick. Anybody afraid of giving her young adult books a chance because of the dozens of books written in the same universe can rest easy.
I read Invincible and Infamous back to back, which was a very good thing. Reading Invincible, I wondered if Kenyon would ever deliver any answers and if this series would take forever since each book seemed to cover a single day in Nick Gaultier’s life. Infamous begins a year later and immediately explains how the older Nick has been able to go back in time and change his adolescence.
For those who have read neither the Dark-Hunters series nor the Chronicles of Nick, Nick is a fifteen-year-old boy living with his single mother in New Orleans. He’s a nice kid, hard worker, has a girlfriend—totally normal aside from the fact that he is half-demon and a variety of very bad things want him dead. Those bad things include his father, who has just escaped from prison.
Most of Infamous focuses on continuing the storyline of Nick gaining control of his powers and various factions attempting to control him in turn. Each book has a self-contained story too, but in this case it disappears for long periods at a time. When it shows up at the end, I had forgotten someone potentially mystical had set up a website spreading lies about Nick’s classmates.
While romance is integral to the Dark-Hunters series, Nick’s relationship with Nekoda is more of a slow-burning thing. They’re willing to risk quite a bit for each other, but they haven’t gone past kissing. Infamous and its predecessors are all clean enough for younger teens as well as older. (Not that thirteen-year-olds worldwide aren’t reading a racy romance right now.)
There’s nothing particularly deep about the Chronicles of Nick. The mythology is complex, but it’s not hard to grasp the basics and just go along for the ride. Nick works well as the central character. Like most YA protagonists, he’s a smartass, but it’s masking a marshmallow center. As for all the people concerned with keeping Nick from turning evil, maybe they should be making Nick and his mother less codependent. Most of the time their relationship comes off as normal, as it should, but other times it is way too intense.
If you have an hour or two to kill, I suggest giving this series a try. Kenyon does seem to have an endgame in mind, which is always a big plus in my book. I’m not fervently in love yet, but it’s solidly written urban fantasy.
Grade: B+
Summary:
The world has fallen in love with Nick Gautier and the Dark-Hunters. Now Nick’s saga continues in the next eagerly anticipated volume…
Go to school. Get good grades. Stay out of trouble. That’s the mandate for most kids. But Nick Gautier isn’t the average teenager. He’s a boy with a destiny not even he fully understands. And his first mandate is to stay alive while everyone, even his own father, tries to kill him.
He’s learned to annihilate zombies and raise the dead, divination and clairvoyance, so why is learning to drive such a difficulty? But that isn’t the primary skill he has to master. Survival is.
And in order to survive, his next lesson makes all the others pale in comparison. He is on the brink of becoming either the greatest hero mankind has ever known.
Or he’ll be the one who ends the world. With enemies new and old gathering forces, he will have to call on every part of himself to fight or he’ll lose everyone he cares about.
Even himself.
Read an excerpt here.
Other books in this series:
