The Keep (The Watchers, #4)

The Keep
Veronica Wolff
324 pages
Releases: June 4, 2013
Publisher: NAL
Source: the publisher
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

WAIT, STOP!  This review contains spoilers from earlier in the series.  You have been warned.  

In the fourth book in The Watcher's series, we find Annelise still at school in her second year, now ranked "Initiate."  The training is tough, but her relationships with others are often tougher.  Many still won't forgive her for her friend Emma's brutal death, but when Annelise discovers there's a chance Emma survive, she hatches a plan to find a way into the castle.  Of course, on top of that is her school assignment to kill a fellow classmate.

Holy moley guacamole, The Keep was an intense novel!  I was on the edge of my proverbial seat the entire time, whether I was fanning myself reading about Annelise's relationship with Carden, or her discovery that Emma might still be alive, or her school assignment to kill a boy.  Yes, you read that right - that's an intense school assignment.  Given all the students that were instructed to complete that task, I mean, whoa, that's gonna cut down the graduation rate.  But the fact that Emma might still be alive: that's what I was really interested in and Annelise's plan to storm the castle, come head to head with some evil vampires, and rescue her friend.  Except...

Much of the plot revolved around Annelise's training and her dreaded school assignment.  They were all interesting, but... in the back of my mind I was thinking, "What about Emma!"  If you know your best friend might still be alive, why are you going to class like a normal person, when you could be storming the castle, right now?!?  Maybe I was a little frustrated with the pace of the novel, even though it was an edge-of-your-seat kind of read.

So finally what I thought was going to be the basis of the novel started happening towards the end and then suddenly... there were no pages left to read.  Wait, what just happened?  Some really big things were not resolved!  The press release I received with the book says this is the "fourth and final" book in the series.  Final?  Surely that can't be right. I sincerely suspect and hope that press release was wrong.

Four stars!  If you're already a fan of the series, you're definitely going to want to continue on.  But if you're new to The Watchers, I recommend picking it up and starting it.  It's an intense take on YA vampire lore that's sure to thrill.