Head Rush
3 Stars

Continuing where Double Cross left off, Justine Jones is preparing for her wedding to Mayor Otto Sanchez and trying to ignore the feelings and clues that something is dreadfully wrong. Her friends and her fiancé appear to be keeping secrets and the city is under martial law due to rampaging sleepwalking cannibals and a rash of crimes that are eerily reminiscent of previous High Cap attacks. Adding to all this is Packard, now a fugitive wanted for murder, who insists that he is innocent despite Justine’s memories. Not knowing who to trust, least of all herself, can Justine unravel the mystery before it is too late?

Although the ending is ultimately satisfying, the journey toward the resolution is rather tedious and predictable.

Unlike the previous installments in which the Disillusionists and their activities are front and center, this book focuses on the mystery of Avery’s death. Unfortunately, as the reader is well aware of the guilty party, Justine’s bumbling about until the stumbles across the truth is both boring and annoying.

The romantic aspects are also problematic as Justine’s intimate moments with Otto are exceedingly icky given what we know about him. Thankfully, Justine comes to her senses sooner rather than later and her romance with Packard kicks into gear, which manages to compensate for the slimy Otto to a certain extent. Speaking of Packard, one cannot help feeling for the poor man - it is heartbreaking watching him hope that Justine will remember even a little about the day they spent together.

The second half of the book and the ending are better and Otto thankfully gets his just desserts. I would have been exceedingly irritated if he had been Disillusioned or redeemed

All in all, a fun series although books #1 and #2 are better than #3. ( )

I'm shocked that this book didn't grab me the way it did my Goodreads friends. Perhaps it's all the craziness going on...work, kids, the holidays. But, for some reason this book didn't hold my interest the way I expected it to. I guess my expectations were too high after reading all the rave reviews. This is a fun series that I would recommend to someone that wants to read a very unique story. I enjoyed the series and believe that I would have liked the last book more if I had simply read it at a different time. ( )

Great finale

4.5/5 review soon! ( )

I enjoyed all three books in this trilogy, but I'm glad the author chose to draw the story to a close here, as she was starting to run out of material to make the idea work. The concept of having people work as "disillusionists" was pretty interesting. How nice it would be to find such a productive (if not entirely legal) way to make use of one's more neurotic tendencies! I was particularly entertained by the main character's use of her hypochondria to "zing" fear into criminals. ( )