Fates

Fates
Lanie Bross
336 pages
Releases: February 11, 2014
Publisher: Delacorte
Source: NetGalley
★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Corinthe has been exiled from her home in Pyralis and sent to the human world.  There, under the guidance of her mentor, Miranda, she must complete several tasks before she can return home and be with her sisters.  Her tasks involve making sure people's fate turns out as they are supposed to, including making sure they are in the right place at the right time for death.  But her final task is new... she must actually kill.  Problem is, she's feeling more and more human these days and she's starting to fall for her target, Lucas.

Not gonna lie, I was drawn in by the cover of this book.  I was searching through NetGalley for something new and the blues and greens of this cover really drew me in.  The description sounded like something I would like, so I requested it.  Good job, Delacorte, for this gorgeous cover that's sure to draw readers in.

Fates really made me think about the question of choice versus fate.  Do we have free will or is everything planned out for us?  Sure we have choices, we make them every day, but are we really choosing or is the outcome already predetermined?  These are fun things to ponder, especially if you're into Philosophy - it reminded me a lot of my PHL101 class in college.  Although I spent time reflecting on this while reading, it wasn't something the author spent a lot of time on.

Like I said, Fates has a gorgeous cover, but a cover alone does not a good book make unfortunately, and I found more problems with this book than I found things to love.  What stood out the most to me was the author's writing style - it seemed simplistic to me and I noticed it a lot more in the second half of the book.  Also, I don't know if this was a formatting problem with my eGalley, but there didn't seem to be much of a distinction between scenes.  That, combined with the fast paced nature of the book, made me feel like I was on a literary bullet train.  I love fast paced novels, but it seems like the book lacked some detail that would have enriched the text.

Three stars.  There were more downsides to this book for me, though ultimately I liked it enough to give it three stars.  Fates might not have done it for me, but I can see a readership out there.  I think fans of Aprilynne Pike's Wings series would adore Fates.  If you're a fantasy or mythology fan, this one's for you.