Abbi Glines - Existence, Predestined, Ceaseless

This is a review of the entire Existence Trilogy, excluding Leif's book.

There's no denying that the Existence trilogy was very interesting and attention-grabbing because of its unique plot (at least it's the first time I've read something like this). Unfortunately, the reason why the trilogy deserves an overall 3.5 stars is because of Ms Glines stunted style of writing and lack of thorough plot development. The ideas were there, and so were the characters, but the writing did not come through for the readers.

My biggest problems with the three books were the abrupt cliffhangers (for books 1 and 2) and the way that Ms Glines began books 2 and 3. 

Existence (Book 1) ended with Dank (horrible name by the way, it makes me think of "skank") telling Pagan that Leif wasn't human. Then Predestined (Book 2) starts off a month later and we find out that Leif has been missing for a month. Wait. Back up. You just threw out there that Leif has been missing for a month and you don't give us any lead up to this? Like it's not important? I felt so lost at this point, I was like "Is there a chapter missing from the book? did I get a defective copy of this ebook or something?" But nope, it was a perfectly good copy, the reader just has to deal with the fact that a month has gone by and we're not gonna get any details about what happened during that time, not even a flash back from Dank or Pagan telling us what happened after Dank told her Leif wasn't human. Nothing. Zip. Nada, amigos. 

Predestined ends with...wait let me check how it ends, I can't even remember anymore...oh right! Dank drops a bomb on Pagan (again, surprise surprise) and tells her that Wyatt's soul is back. 

Fast-forward two weeks (I think it's two weeks) and all of a sudden, PAGAN'S MEMORY IS GONE!!!  And all we have to prepare us for this is some weird prologue --___--...what the fuckety fuck Ms Glines? Don't you think your readers would want better lead up to this than some obscurely weird prologue? I would have liked to have seen the scene where the Creator tells Dank that he's gonna take away Pagan's memories so that "her choice can be fair" and the scene where Pagan wakes up with her memory wiped. I mean, we jumped from Predestined which ended with "Wyatt's soul is back" to Ceaseless which started with "Pagan's memory is gone"...does anyone see anything wrong with this or am I just crazy? It is the most non sequitur series I have ever read!! It drove me insane that Ms Glines did this!! Sorry for my rant, it's over, I promise ;)

Also, grammar and spelling were pretty bad at some parts, which made it hard to follow the story line sometimes.

Another problem I had with Ceaseless was that the language was way more sexually explicit than the first two books. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem reading a raunchy sex scene, but what I do have a problem with is that, once again, there was no lead up to this!!! From the first two books, you would never guess that the third book would include anything more than some steamy kissing. But nope, we get some smexy sexy time, which is completely out of left field. It would have been fine if the language was more sexually explicit from the beginning, but to throw it into the third book all of a sudden just made it seem like the author spontaneously decided to go from a YA to an NA genre. So once again, there is a problem of continuity. 

This was sadly the only thing that made me subtract 1.5 stars from my rating. Everything else was fantastic, but I just couldn't deal with how stunted the plot that ran through the 3 books was. 

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