Review: Torn by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Genre: New Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Pages: 369
Series: The Wicked Trilogy #2
Release Date: July 19, 2016
Publisher: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Wow, I really liked this book. Honestly, I’d started to expect mostly mediocre stuff from JLA and the Covenant series (which I loved) was starting to seem more like the exception rather than the rule. But this book gives me hope.

At the end of Wicked, we found out that Ivy is a halfling, i.e. half human and half faerie, and that the prince will try to convince her to willingly have sex with him so that they can have a baby who will open the gates to the Otherworld, therefore ensuring that the human world would be taken over by the fae. The book ended on the revelation and I was quite angry because making Ivy the a halfling was such a predictable and clichéd move.

In this book, we see that Ivy is struggling with the discovery. She can’t tell anyone, except Tink, who already knew. She especially doesn’t want to put Ren in a place where he has to choose between her and his duty. And the prince is obviously still lurking around and trying to scheme up ways to get her to have sex with him.

This was a big improvement from the last book. That’s not to say that there weren’t predictable moments, there certainly were, but it was the overall tone as well as the direction the story took that I liked. This feels like a mature book, and that has nothing to do with sex. We all know that you can have two people in their thirties who are sexing up a storm, still have the emotional maturity of a pre-teen. No, this maturity was more about how the character changed and grew in irreversible ways.

This was a darker book that I’d expected, especially the second half. Again, I loved the direction that JLA decided to take the story in and I came to like really both the main characters. We also got to know our villain better. The world was further elaborated. There was a surprising lack of angst and we have a path for where the characters are headed.

It does still bother me that the fae seem to resemble vampires more than faeries but all authors have their own versions of magical beings and I can’t necessarily fault them for that. I’m anticipating that we’ll find out even more about these faeries and I’m definitely rooting for Ivy and Ren. This was a really good sequel and kind of restored my faith in JLA in the plot and characters department (the writing has never really been a problem with her). I’m eager to see what the third book will bring.