I used to be the blogger called YAL Book Briefs, but I grew bored of the handle and changed my name to Howdy YAL. I also respond to MJ. I like to read, write, eat truffles, and watch bad Lifetime movies.
Can you believe it’s the fourth month of this Mediator reread series? Neither can I. In Mediator news, there has been an excerpt and cover leaked, people. Seems like Paul is up to his old tricks again, not that surprised (and yes, I already preordered this book).
What I Remember:
I remember really being surprised by this one and kind of shocked about how evil Paul was in this one. Because remember, I read Haunted first. If you just read Haunted, Paul just seems like a sightly sleazy boy who makes some dubious choices. But in Darkest Evil you know that he would have no problem fighting Voldemort and probably winning (he’d probably exorcise all seven pieces of Voldy’s soul and laugh about it).
Reread
If Suze Simon isn’t a BAMF character before, she is now.
Honestly, in a lot of ways, Darkest Hour is my favorite book in the series. The last one might hit some emotional strings for me, but this book does too and has Suze fight probably the most scariest baddies in the series.
We also get more backstory on Jesse which is a good thing, because really up until this point the character Jesse needed some (okay, a lot fleshing out).
I think this book is what seals the deal for the Juze ship. My OTP. Okay, to be honest I do like Paul/Suze in fanfiction better. Only because I think in fannon it allows more story, but in cannon I <3 Suze and Jesse forever. You can really feel how much these two characters have grown to love each other in this book-though Suze is too stupid to realize Jesse has feelings for her.
I also like how the two of them interact around Maria and Diego. I thought having Suze having to deal with Jesse’s past was a pretty smart idea on Cabot’s part. The dude has baggage due to the way he died, and I’m glad she didn’t ignore that.
Maria and Diego make more formable foils than Heather or the RLS Angels, that’ s for sure. It doesn’t take Suze almost 200 pages to be in peril only till like chapter 2 or 3. And she’s actually scared. And Jesse doesn’t really come to her rescue in this book. She does a bit of saving herself. Really as far as action goes, I’d say this is probably the most action filled Mediator book.
As I said in the first part of this review, this is the first book that Paul comes into play. After reading the series as a whole, it is the same Paul but you do see a different side of him here. I think I read somewhere that Meg always was a little shocked with Paul’s popularity because he is a sleaze. To be honest, he is sleazy in this book but the Paul character evolves as the series comes to play. I really wonder if I would be so team Cannon Juze had the series been allowed to extend to the seven or eight book she initially wanted to do.
Overall Darkest Hour was probably one of the best if not the best books in the Mediator series.