PESTILENCE
AUTHOR: Laura Thalassa
PUBLISHED ON: 14 September 2018
GENRE: Dystopian Romance Fantasy
RATINGS: 2.75 Stars
BOOK 1 OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN
SUMMARY
Pestilence by Laura Thalassa takes us on a journey towards the end or rather towards the destruction. 4 Horsemen arrive on the Earth and nothing is same again. From the moment they come on Earth, Earth is facing some problems. Electricity is fluctuating, the machinery won’t work like before, there are some problems with the aircraft and so on. But 5 years after that fateful night when the horsemen came to Earth, something changes. And that change is Pestilence. Pestilence is on a mission. A mission that he is entrusted. A mission to teach humans a lesson. And so the only way is to punish them. And so Pestilence is moving from place to place, city to city, country to country and people all around are getting infected with a deadly plague.
But humans aren’t easy to lose hope and so while citizens evacuate, there are some group of people who stay behind- to try and kill Pestilence. One such person is Sara Burns. Sara, a firefighter, stays behind in her mission to kill Pestilence. And so to kill him, she uses her grandfather’s gun and when that doesn’t work, she tries to burn him alive. But fate has some other plans and she didn’t realize that Pestilence can not die. And so, in return Pestilence decides to teach this human a lesson. After all, if you kill someone, they don’t suffer.
And so, Sara Burns is a captive to one of the deadliest horseman who is dead set to kill people. But on this journey, Pestilence will learn a different side to humanity and Sara learns a different side to the horseman. But will learning about each other be enough to save the world?
MY THOUGHTS
Pestilence by Laura Thalassa talks about how Pestilence, is on his journey to teach humanity a much needed lesson. I honestly don’t know from where to start. I wanted to read this book for a while now. But I had no idea what this book was about. And now, after finishing this book, I am more confused than ever. I still don’t know how to rate this book. This book had a good idea, a good storyline but I found so many things that disturbed me. Reading Pestilence was a constant ride of emotions, because I really wanted to know what happens and at the same time cringe at the stupidity. But let’s start with things that I liked:
I liked the plot of the story. I mean, come-on, we know humans have gone way beyond what was expected and some retribution to harming the nature? That is something I definitely can enjoy. And when Pestilence gives some reason, well, that is valid. So, yes the idea behind the plot is a plus point for me. Now, coming to Sara. Sara is a fire fighter. Maybe that’s just me, but I haven’t read any book where the main female character is a fire fighter. So, I was impressed by that. I liked seeing an unusual profession. I have no problem with the writing either. Laura has her way with the words and I had no problem reading her works nor did I struggle to get in the zone of reading despite this being a dystopian setting. Though I think it has something to do with the fact that it was set in the modern world.
Now, before I get into the reasons why I didn’t enjoy this book. Let me clarify something. Rating this book was difficult. I had to constantly try to bridge the gap between what I enjoy and things that I personally consider Red flags. Now, this is again a bit hypocritic of me because I have enjoyed a book with the same problems before and rated them 4 stars but I could not for this book.
Sara is taken as a prisoner by Pestilence. And Pestilence makes it quite clear that she is alive just to suffer. And he does make her suffer, abusing her verbally, physically and mentally (Not sexually). And Sara as she accompanies Pestilence from place to place, she witnesses his cruelty. How towns crumble and people die because of the deadly plague and despite witnessing this, she could not do anything to save the people.
But then they both witness acts of kindness that the other performs. And the hate that they had for each other slowly turns into something else, something more. “After all, what is love if not a form of hate.” But love was not enough. They both belonged to other world and balancing the other world was not as easy as they believed.
The problem that I had was with the captive and prisoner romance. Don’t get me wrong. I love some story with the same trope but when they have some time to explore some emotions, explore their feelings for each other, have some other space before accepting the other. What problem I had was that Sara was constantly upset or not happy with what Pestilence is doing, she doesn’t want humanity to end but at the same time she starts loving him. And more than that except being a fire fighter, I think she was again an example for Mary Sue.
It’s been days since I completed this book and I am still confused? I don’t know what to feel about many things. I am confused if I will continue this series or not. I have no idea what I am going to do.
Have you read this series? Or Pestilence? What are your thoughts? Do you think the series does get better?
If you enjoy my content, you can support me here.
BLURB
They came to earth–Pestilence, War, Famine, Death–four horsemen riding their screaming steeds, racing to the corners of the world. Four horsemen with the power to destroy all of humanity. They came to earth, and they came to end us all.
When Pestilence comes for Sara Burn’s town, one thing is certain: everyone she knows and loves is marked for death. Unless, of course, the angelic-looking horseman is stopped, which is exactly what Sara has in mind when she shoots the unholy beast off his steed.
Too bad no one told her Pestilence can’t be killed.
Now the horseman, very much alive and very pissed off, has taken her prisoner, and he’s eager to make her suffer. Only, the longer she’s with him, the more uncertain she is about his true feelings towards her … and hers towards him.
And now, well, Sara might still be able to save the world, but in order to do so, she’ll have to sacrifice her heart in the process.
===== SPOILER ZONE =====
I honestly don’t know how after being physically abused by Pestilence for no other reason but trying to kill him when he was killing everyone Sara still manages to fall in love with him. As I said, the captive and prisoner stories are kinda tricky. There is a fine line that separates it from becoming a walking Red Flag. I loved Captive Prince and it was a way more cruel than what was shown here. But I loved it. I think the story went a little too fast between Pestilence and Sara, if they were given some time to explore, I would’ve enjoyed it more.
You can read the review for A Drowned Kingdom by P.L.Stuart here.
You can read the review for The Blood of Outcasts here.
You can read the review for A King’s Radiance here.
You can read an article for Creation & Destruction here.
