Review: Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Opposition
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: Lux, #5
Format: Paperback, owned
My rating: 2 / 5
Pages: 534

Add to Goodreads

Katy knows the world changed the night the Luxen came.

She can't believe Daemon welcomed his race or stood by as his kind threatened to obliterate every last human and hybrid on Earth. But the lines between good and bad have blurred, and love has become an emotion that could destroy her—could destroy them all.

Daemon will do anything to save those he loves, even if it means betrayal.

They must team with an unlikely enemy if there is any chance of surviving the invasion. But when it quickly becomes impossible to tell friend from foe, and the world is crumbling around them, they may lose everything— even what they cherish most—to ensure the survival of their friends…and mankind.

War has come to Earth. And no matter the outcome, the future will never be the same for those left standing.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Opposition was the one book that was set to be released in 2014 that I was 100% sure I would love.

Leading up to the release, I never once thought I might feel anything less than adoration for Opposition. My reaction has completely blindsided me. How do I feel? Underwhelmed and disappointed was the best sum-up I can come up with. Bored was another. I'm numb. It never occurred to me. It wasn’t supposed to happen! Everything that I loved about Origin, was completely absent in Opposition. I think I’m more shocked about my less than fangirling reaction, rather than what occurred in the book. I have to be honest: I felt Opposition was very tame, cheesy, and too neatly resolved. I was expecting so much more. Also, my expectations were far too high. Arrgh, I don’t want to be writing this. I want to be gushing from the rooftops, and it pains me that I’m not. I WANTED to love this book so much.

Opposition follows on two days after Origin ends. Daemon, Dawson and Dee have gone back to the Luxen, and Katy is stuck with Beth, Archer and Luc. For the first thirty, maybe forty pages, I loved everything. Both Daemon and Katy’s voices were distinct and I was gobbling up both the story and the pages. Then everything I was enjoying … stopped. In Origin, the dual POV – when Daemon and Katy were separated – worked so well. It served a purpose, allowing us to see both sides of the story, and what both characters were separately going through. I loved seeing inside both of their heads, and I was looking forward to reliving all of this again. Unfortunately, in Opposition, after the first fifth of the book, both Daemon and Katy’s POV’s were blending together, and I had to go back and check who was narrating quite often. It felt like the story was being told in one POV, and the only change was which name was being used in the dialogue. This completely shocked me. Not ONCE did I have this problem in Origin! I have no idea what went wrong. If the book was written in Daemon’s perspective, or in Katy’s perspective, I would have accepted and maybe even liked the book more than I did. I KNOW I would have.

I was disconnected from both Daemon and Katy for the vast majority of the book. There were moments where Daemon was his usual smart-ass self, and I liked seeing Katy in her badass role. But, for so much of the book it felt like a watered down version of my two favourite characters. I wanted to see more of Katy being Katy and Daemon being Daemon. It felt like I was reading about two cardboard cut outs with the names Katy and Daemon stamped on them, rather than their usual vibrant selves. When Katy uttered the word “totes”, I was taken aback in a big way. My initial reaction was ‘Who the hell are you, and what have you done with Katy?’ Can you imagine the girl that dumped a plate of spaghetti on Daemon and Ash in Obsidian saying the word “totes”? I sure as hell can’t! I’ve resorted to blaming my disconnection with them on the POV switching, and it breaks my heart that I didn’t feel the same love for both of them that I did in previous books. I loved these two, and knowing this is the last time I’ll read anything new about them, and I didn’t love it… sigh. It feels like such a let-down.

In the middle of the book, the story fell away completely, and I became very bored and impatient. I was expecting the story to zip on ahead like in the previous books. When it plodded on and on and on, I just wanted the point to hurry up and get here already! When it did arrive, the resolution to the Luxen invasion felt rushed, and unconvincing. There was a bit of build up to the big resolution, and then poof, it’s over. Just like that. It felt too anti-climactic, especially after everything that happened in Origin, and over the series as a whole. Granted, everything wrapped up as I expected, and I’m happy about that, but I was convinced something epic should have taken place. When it didn’t happen, I was left with a feeling of… meh.

In honesty, the epilogue was what brought the book back from the brink of total disappointment in my eyes. I loved it. It was the perfect conclusion, and I just wish the rest of the book held half the same meaning and emotion for me as those short few pages did. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to override my disappointment of the book overall. I can’t help feeling that Opposition was a half-hearted ending to one of my favourite YA series.

This time last month, before I read this book, I never thought I would be writing up this kind of review for Opposition. It breaks my heart so much, and I wish I was trying to put into words how much I loved this book. The Lux series is still a 5 star series for me, and this is based on Shadows, Obsidian, Onyx, Opal and Origin. I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority with my opinions on Opposition. My expectations were way, way, way too high, and once the first doubts began creeping into my head, I couldn’t find anything to bring my opinions back to being positive before the epilogue.

My rating is a very generous two hearts, and this is in reflection of my love for the previous books in the series. If I was rating Opposition by itself, one-point-five hearts would be the highest I could give it.

I’m absolutely gutted I didn’t love Opposition. I never expected it. This has thought me a bitter lesson to never expect to love a book. I will reread the series one day, and I really hope my final thoughts on the last book will change in the future.