A Review of Skulduggery Pleasant: A Soul Full of Shadows, and Phase 3 of the SP saga in general
Oh boy here we go again. Just finished reading the last book of the third phase of the SP saga, which clearly is not the last saga cause god forbid derek landy ties up all his plotlines on a single book.
Now. I reviewed the previous two books before this one and TL;DR quite liked the first one, was kinda okay with the second one and in general prefered phase 3 over phase 2 and its billion different POV's. This last book at least follows the course correction and mainly shows Valkyrie, Winter and Taniths povs, which is good cause they're all characters i like and am interested in. But this book kinda pissed me off guys.
Firstly and the main reason it pissed me off: Skulduggery and Valkyrie hardly spend time together in the book. HELLO???? WHY TF WOULD YOU DO THIS???? I swear this new direction derek took with their relationship, where he just wants to make it sooo clear to us that they're toxic and codependent and unhealthy, and because of this apparently we can't have them together for too long, is so obnoxious. Of course they are toxic and codependent and unhealthy derek, THAT'S WHY I KEEP ON READING THE BOOKS. I'm sick and tired of the story giving them less and less screen time together in its effort to try to correct essentially all of phase 1, and yet not even fully commiting to this by reminding us every 200 pages or so that yeah, Skulduggery and Valkyrie are still as insane about the other as always, we just get to see much less of them. Which absolutely sucks. By far my biggest gripe with the story so far.
The other thing that made me almost drop the book in exasperation was the whole disaster with everything about Valkyrie's "death". First of all, who do you think you're fooling? Of couse she was gonna come back somehow, so having me go through the motions of everyones reaction and shock and tears and the "meaningful" conversations, and the funeral, and look guys it's scapegrace! Didn't you like scapegrace?? Look it's dexter vex! Am i going to give him something to do? Of course not! It was agony tbh. Second of all, it actually finally made me dislike Militsa, cause what to you mean she's suddenly coming along on the mission and we're justifying it by saying we need an expert in stealth so, umm, shadows. Don't piss me off! It's obvious she was just brought along so that Valkyrie could sacrifice herself and die her meaningless death man. Plus the absolutely vile and despicable things she says to Winter just after her sisters death?? WTF?? You just made me despise a character you want me to like derek! In a single scene! I'm almost impressed! All of this isn't helped by the fact Militsa's character, despite appearing in seven books now, still remains as deep as a paper bag, as complex as a rock and as interesting as watching drying paint. She's still, after everything, just Valkyries Girlfriend (except she got a promotion and is now just Valkyries Wife).
Moving onto things i did like, Cadavers here again! Thank god! I still really like him, to no ones surprise, and i wish we'd seen more of him. Such a shame he dropped off the face of the earth in the middle of the book tho, with no explanation as to why, but i guess we just needed space for more interesting characters, like Militsa for example (god fucking damnit).
I also still like Winter as a secondary protagonist more than i ever liked Omen, and i like the evolution of her character and her personality, even if she still remains surrounded by wet pieces of cardboard masquerading as characters. And i hate her forced and rushed romantic subplot with Koa fucking Koa. Also i skipped her fight scene with boring antagonists #1 to #4, sorry not sorry.
This is just a complaint with phase 3 in general cause guys? Did i just hallucinate that Skulduggery's siblings returned at the end of phase 2? Weren't we teased with more information about them?? Am i going crazy?! An entire saga has passed without a single mention of Skulduggery's siblings and i think i'm gonna eat the plaster in my walls cause in what universe is dealing with the eighteenth world-ending plotline more interesting than getting to know more about Skulduggery!? (and don't mention his 20 fucking grandchildren istg). Also i guess no one else apart from Valkyrie and China will ever find out about Skulduggery being Lord Vile, cause i guess interesting ideas are out of the question now apparently. Who knows if they'll ever be back.
I still love the Skulduggery Pleasant books. I love Skulduggery. I love Valkyrie. I love the two of them together. I don't think i'll ever stop loving them, no matter what. This series still means so much to me. I loved the moments we got of the two of them in this book, even if there were fewer than i would've liked. Phase 3 started out of pretty strong, and even though the structure and focus in comparison with phase 2 improved a lot, i'm afraid to say it kinda stumbled in its landing. I just want more of Skulduggery and Valkyrie, is that too much to ask?
4/10 cause not even half of the book had the two protagonists together.
6/10 for phase 3. you glimpsed the spark, but it vanished when you reached out for it.
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