CE Murphy - Shaman Rises

For over a year, Joanne has been fighting the Master—the world's most abiding evil entity. She's sacrificed family, friendships, even watched potential futures fade away…and now the Master is bringing the final battle to Joanne's beloved Seattle.
Lives will be lost as the repercussions of all Joanne's final transformation into her full Shamanic abilities come to her doorstep. Before the end, she'll mourn, rejoice—and surrender everything for the hope of the world's survival. She'll be a warrior and a healer. Because she is finally a Shaman Rising. 

Comment: Here it is the final installment of the Walker Papers series which I have been reading for years. At first I wasn't very motivated but ket going and a couple of books were really special and addictive. The plot was riveting even if the execution sometimes left me thinking of what could be different. Anyway, I kept going, had a wonderful time with some books and a more boring one with others. Unfortunately, with this last book I was a bit more bored than surprised.

Joanne has reached the end of her self discovery as shaman. She knows what's she's doing most of the time now but she still has the Master to defeat, the enemy that has making things bad for her and her friends since the beginning. Joanne starts the ultimate fight on the day after her fried Gary telling something that should be impossible, but with Joanne nothing is truly impossible. But will Joanne accomplish her win without losses?

Like I said, I was bored with this book and I wasn't expecting that for the last installment of the series. Throughout all the books this aspect has been evident because the author made Joanne the first person narrator so we have to always follow what she's doing and thinking and when she is fighting in other plans or having doubts or even self learning we have to go with her every time. The same thing happens here, and maybe it's my way of seeing things but I had the feeling it was a bit more than in some of the other books. 
Joanne is fighting a bad being so there's lots of fighting, not physically all the time, mostly in the  shaman planes but it's action and it's like the reader can't stop to breathe. Joanne is always on the move and if not fighting, doing something else, or helping or talking or thinking. There's no time out unless something bad really happens, in which case we have to suffer her loss or her disappointment.

I can't say it's only negative things, after all I've been following the series for quite a while, but this last book was boring, I had a hard time concentrating on the words and in not putting the book aside.And even the little good scenes, or more easy ones seemed to be less, probably because of the huge task Joanne had to achieve. But in terms of reading, it was tiring to keep with action all the time.

Then there's the negative things, like death. I suppose it would have been too much to ask for Joanne to keep her friends with her and everyone who mattered. At least Morrison is still on the picture a is Gary. But there's death and disappointments and the final scene with it's hopeful vibe wasn't enough for me.
I guess I can't complain because it's the way the author writes and has always presented a book at least in this series, but personally I hoped for more than all the challenges to overcome and the unhappy solutions to some of those problems.
Still, a positive mark because it's solid. But I hoped for better.
Grade: 6/10