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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
dark
emotional
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
a strange series with an even stranger (but very fitting) ending
“Sometimes even kings need to kneel.”
Should you write a book review when you are still high on the book?
I think probably not, but some of my favourite past reviews are the ones done when I’m in the moment. And right now, I am in that moment.
Reading, for me, is about the imprint a book leaves on your heart and your soul. You can read lots of books that come and go. They are fleeting; enjoyable in the now. Then there are the books you know will stay with you. Like this one.
Every antler horn will take me there. Every bruise coloured rose. Library shelves. Cherry printed bathing suits. Pouty boys wearing peacoats. They will take me back to Thornchapel. Back to the characters who have become friends that I care deeply about. I’ve become so invested in their lives that I’m hurting that it’s ended. My beautiful Thornchapel Six.
I always find Sierra Simone’s writing style amazing. I love how she changes parts of the story from first person to third person. It’s like those are the parts that you have to look at through a different lens. They feel like an out of body experience. One minute I’m there in the story and the next I’m watching it all unfold before me. It’s completely fascinating how she does it and how well it works.
My favourite bits:
“Once upon a time, when I was seventeen and full of crimson misery and livid hurt, I came upon a flower in the thorn chapel.”
“No matter what eternities pass, no matter how many times the door opens and shuts, you’ll always be mine.”
This final book in the series is an emotional ride. I’m utterly gobsmacked. Great series. I’m crying rose petal tears.
Should you write a book review when you are still high on the book?
I think probably not, but some of my favourite past reviews are the ones done when I’m in the moment. And right now, I am in that moment.
Reading, for me, is about the imprint a book leaves on your heart and your soul. You can read lots of books that come and go. They are fleeting; enjoyable in the now. Then there are the books you know will stay with you. Like this one.
Every antler horn will take me there. Every bruise coloured rose. Library shelves. Cherry printed bathing suits. Pouty boys wearing peacoats. They will take me back to Thornchapel. Back to the characters who have become friends that I care deeply about. I’ve become so invested in their lives that I’m hurting that it’s ended. My beautiful Thornchapel Six.
I always find Sierra Simone’s writing style amazing. I love how she changes parts of the story from first person to third person. It’s like those are the parts that you have to look at through a different lens. They feel like an out of body experience. One minute I’m there in the story and the next I’m watching it all unfold before me. It’s completely fascinating how she does it and how well it works.
My favourite bits:
“Once upon a time, when I was seventeen and full of crimson misery and livid hurt, I came upon a flower in the thorn chapel.”
“No matter what eternities pass, no matter how many times the door opens and shuts, you’ll always be mine.”
This final book in the series is an emotional ride. I’m utterly gobsmacked. Great series. I’m crying rose petal tears.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think I am most upset with this installment in the series over them all. I was actually really enjoying how the mythical aspects of this story was wrapping up and I had even thought we were finally getting a solution to the incest relationship . But all Sierra Simone did was drag me for 500 pages and tell me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry but I like that they are brothers . Oh and also that female character whose perspective you really enjoyed from book one? She will actually be pushed aside and IN FACT, be actually a side character in her own fucking relationship and literally, disappear into the shadows. OH and!!! The mystery of this Thornchapel home? Pretty useless actually because there are no consequences.
I also believe I am the most angry at this book because book one absolutely took my breath away and I was really expecting this to be a favourite series, BUT ALAS I GUESS NOT because it was all downhill from book two.
Also, I still cannot fucking believe it is never concluded that Auden and St. Sebastian are not brothers. It ends with them married and deciding that they do not care if they are brother because St. Sebastian "would've been a Guest anyways" . I am shook. I am appalled. I am disgusted.
I also believe I am the most angry at this book because book one absolutely took my breath away and I was really expecting this to be a favourite series, BUT ALAS I GUESS NOT because it was all downhill from book two.
Also, I still cannot fucking believe
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Sexual content
This is a complicated one... It's a good, solid book with beautiful prose and enchanting landscape… but it was like that since book 1, and as much as I love prose and atmospheric, moody, mysterious vibes, that’s not enough to carry a 4 book series. I have a feeling since the middle of the second book that the author had a very clear preference to one couple in a 6 main characters series, which wouldn’t be a problem at all if those two were clearly the main characters since de beginning, but that’s not the case. The main character was always supposed to be Poe and yet here we are, with only one of the four books actually making me feel like she was and it’s very sad to feel like the author just lost interest in her and jumped to the angst – taboo – incest – borderline fetishizing of m/m relationship trainwreck of a plot. And Poe was actually the one character, other than Auden and Saint, that received something close to a purpose in this book, because the other ones were just… there. Rebecca and Delphine had an entire journey and character arcs that were so interesting, complex and more rooted in reality than most on this series and it all just went to waist in here. And Becket… poor complex, conflicted, good hearted Becket… he got nothing. Oh no, wait, actually he got something… it was just so terrible that I blocked out of my memory.
Over all, the prose of the writing is beautiful, the sex is great, the plot is more present than in other books of the series but the character work was just not it for me.
So, the goods…
Auden had a good, earned and fulfilling character arc. He grew a lot from the first introduction we got of him and considering that I stared the series not having enough patience to even read his lines of dialogue and ended crying because of his relatable feelings of grieving, lost and feeling responsible for a community, I think that’s probably one of the best parts of this book.
There is this one scene where Rebecca e Delphine finally confront each other that made me FEEL. It was great.
Everything about the door, the roses, the plague… It made sense and gave context to the fear and the necessity of closing the door.
The “sacrifice” not being actually death, but giving up a life – what could be achieved in a different way. That was a brilliant plot twist, but had SO MUCH foreshadowing that by the time it happened, I just wanted to get over with it.
The bad, the ugly and the rotten:
The bad – Beckett being the one that killed Poe’s mom. WHY? W H Y ? It was so random, had no reason to exist other than to make Becket sacrificing himself having more weight, what could’ve been easily achieved with a good character arc, that he never really got.
The ugly – Delphine and Rebecca deciding to be together was told, not showed. And we had Rebecca’s pov in the first half of the book, but just like Poe, the author kind of forgot she had other characters that need their arcs fulfilled. The fact that we never had a “I love you” from Rebecca to Delphine on the page gives me such a rage… I hate in here.
The rotten – THE FUCKING INCEST. WHY? W H Y? WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH??? When that shit happen in the second book I look to the page and laughed. I just didn’t buy the bullshit. Then in the third book is revealed that Saint’s mom had him after being May Queen and doing the rituals, that are – mind you – ORGIES. WITH MULTIPLE MEN. But for some reason everybody just accepted that Ralph was his biological father… WHY??? How stupid do you have to be to listed that you were conceived in a orgy and just sit with a letter as truth of who your father is? So obviously, everybody and their mother were expecting Saint and Auden not to be related. We get a DNA test and everything… and then we get this bullshit. This next level, out of this world, level of bullshit. The “it doesn’t matter if we are brother or not, I’m gonna fuck you anyway, so what’s the point” level of bullshit. I understand what the author tried to do here: she tried to please everybody. If you want the incest, then you can imagine that Saint is Auden’s brother, and if you don’t want it, you can imagine that Saint is actually Delphine’s brother. It’s a smart move and can work for some, but I hate this middle place, not committing to something, weak shit. Honestly, if you had the balls to write then fucking each other, go all the way down to hell and make it real. For me this was an “of course they are brothers, but I’m giving a double meaning so people won’t call me out on me incest kink”. I don’t have a incest kink, I don’t like incest popping up in books out of nowhere like it happened in this series, but I like even less this coward, people pleaser type of writing: if you’re gonna do it, than do it.
Over all, the prose of the writing is beautiful, the sex is great, the plot is more present than in other books of the series but the character work was just not it for me.
Spoiler
So, the goods…
Auden had a good, earned and fulfilling character arc. He grew a lot from the first introduction we got of him and considering that I stared the series not having enough patience to even read his lines of dialogue and ended crying because of his relatable feelings of grieving, lost and feeling responsible for a community, I think that’s probably one of the best parts of this book.
There is this one scene where Rebecca e Delphine finally confront each other that made me FEEL. It was great.
Everything about the door, the roses, the plague… It made sense and gave context to the fear and the necessity of closing the door.
The “sacrifice” not being actually death, but giving up a life – what could be achieved in a different way. That was a brilliant plot twist, but had SO MUCH foreshadowing that by the time it happened, I just wanted to get over with it.
The bad, the ugly and the rotten:
The bad – Beckett being the one that killed Poe’s mom. WHY? W H Y ? It was so random, had no reason to exist other than to make Becket sacrificing himself having more weight, what could’ve been easily achieved with a good character arc, that he never really got.
The ugly – Delphine and Rebecca deciding to be together was told, not showed. And we had Rebecca’s pov in the first half of the book, but just like Poe, the author kind of forgot she had other characters that need their arcs fulfilled. The fact that we never had a “I love you” from Rebecca to Delphine on the page gives me such a rage… I hate in here.
The rotten – THE FUCKING INCEST. WHY? W H Y? WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH??? When that shit happen in the second book I look to the page and laughed. I just didn’t buy the bullshit. Then in the third book is revealed that Saint’s mom had him after being May Queen and doing the rituals, that are – mind you – ORGIES. WITH MULTIPLE MEN. But for some reason everybody just accepted that Ralph was his biological father… WHY??? How stupid do you have to be to listed that you were conceived in a orgy and just sit with a letter as truth of who your father is? So obviously, everybody and their mother were expecting Saint and Auden not to be related. We get a DNA test and everything… and then we get this bullshit. This next level, out of this world, level of bullshit. The “it doesn’t matter if we are brother or not, I’m gonna fuck you anyway, so what’s the point” level of bullshit. I understand what the author tried to do here: she tried to please everybody. If you want the incest, then you can imagine that Saint is Auden’s brother, and if you don’t want it, you can imagine that Saint is actually Delphine’s brother. It’s a smart move and can work for some, but I hate this middle place, not committing to something, weak shit. Honestly, if you had the balls to write then fucking each other, go all the way down to hell and make it real. For me this was an “of course they are brothers, but I’m giving a double meaning so people won’t call me out on me incest kink”. I don’t have a incest kink, I don’t like incest popping up in books out of nowhere like it happened in this series, but I like even less this coward, people pleaser type of writing: if you’re gonna do it, than do it.