Review: Tricked

Tricked by Kevin Hearne

Genre: Adult

It's Raining Men! 2012 Challenge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads Says: Druid Atticus O’Sullivan hasn’t stayed alive for more than two millennia without a fair bit of Celtic cunning. So when vengeful thunder gods come Norse by Southwest looking for payback, Atticus, with a little help from the Navajo trickster god Coyote, lets them think that they’ve chopped up his body in the Arizona desert.

But the mischievous Coyote is not above a little sleight of paw, and Atticus soon finds that he’s been duped into battling bloodthirsty desert shapeshifters called skinwalkers. Just when the Druid thinks he’s got a handle on all the duplicity, betrayal comes from an unlikely source. If Atticus survives this time, he vows he won’t be fooled again. Famous last words.

I’ve started this review at least 4 times and I’ve listened to the audiobook twice and I’m still having difficulties in defining my feelings for this book. Since this review is way overdue I’m just going to try and roll with it… let’s see where we end up.

First and foremost, I totally love this series, the concept, the writer and his style of writing, the flow, the spiritual aspect, the history, OBERON (I LOVE THAT DOG), the LOL moments, the HOLY CRAP moments, the covers!! … I love it all.

Yet, this was my least favorite book.

Tricked picks up right where Hammered left off. Atticus, the last living Druid, has to fake his death so the Norse gods don’t come after him for everything that happened in the first three books of the series. In order to pull it off the magical trickster Coyote has offered to help as long as Atticus returns the favor, no questions asked. Atticus agrees and all hell breaks loose… as usual.

This book had a totally different feel to it. Native American folklore, more specifically Navajo folklore, is explored in this book. Atticus had to find solutions to problems that he was not familiar with and at times not powerful enough to deal with. In the midst of dealing with these issues we find out more about Atticus’ past, what has happened to some of the characters in the first three books, get a good dose of Navajo magic and finish the book hoping Atticus and Granuaille have a wonderful 12 years of training.

I think my biggest issue with the book is that everyone you’ve come to know and care for in the first three are totally gone in book 4. Even those characters that make a brief appearance don’t feel the same and essentially felt nonexistent. I found it hard to care the same way for the new characters because to tell you the truth, it took me 3 books to really care for the original cast. Let me explain further. Atticus has real trust issues and as a reader I've come to share those issues with him because how can you not? Well, not completely but enough to the point where I kind of like these folks and then again I can't trust them. However, by book 3 I came to trust them, like them and miss them only to find out that I have to start all over again in book 4 AND you really aren't given much of a chance to really like the newbies.

I’m also having problems liking Granuaille as much as Atticus does. True enough this entire series is in Atticus’ voice and it’s always hard to get a feel for someone other than Atticus because you only get the one POV, however, I already know how special Oberon is and he’s a dog. Translation: I think I need more for me to see how special she really is because hey, she’s a Druid-in-training and that is HUGE!

All in all this is a 4 for me. In spite of my feelings this book is still full of action, the author gives Atticus a very unique voice (there is NO ONE like Atticus out there), the humor is awesome and best of all it’s well written.

On to the next!