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The book suffered from pacing problems. The first third of the book dragged on and on, with Bryce spending way too much time wandering through tunnels looking at art. Maybe it would have been a bit more interesting if we at least got some angst from Bryce, but it felt like she wasn't all that concerned about her mate and brother being in grave danger. There was no sense of urgency on her part to rescue them from being tortured and maybe eventually executed. Then, later in the book, we get to follow along as Bryce wanders through tunnels again. Not exactly riveting stuff.
There were also too many POVs happening to allow enough time with the main characters. I really didn't care about Ithan's and Tharion's storylines and dreaded every time it switched back to their POVs. They were mostly just those two characters making stupid mistakes followed by a lot of self loathing. I hope they make Tharion much more interesting and likeable if he's going to feature prominently in the next book. I did like his marriage of convenience subplot and think there is interesting potential there.
Bryce and Hunt's relationship was a mess in this book, and I really didn't like Bryce much. She never communicates her plans with Hunt. Then even though Hunt is blindly following her into danger, she picks fights with him because he isn't enthusiastic about being there. How can he be 100% on board with her plans when he doesn't know what they are? She doesn't seem to care that this is only a couple days after he got back from spending several days being brutally tortured for allowing her to drag him into this mess. Or that the situation is reminiscent of how things went with Shahar and to say that ended tragically would be an understatement. Bryce was being so disrespectful towards Hunt and his trauma because she wanted to look like a badass with gotcha moments and zingers. Really, it feels like most of her plans were half-baked at best, and they only work out in her favor because of plot armor. It didn't feel like an equal partnership between the main couple. Bryce just does whatever she wants, doesn't tell Hunt, and leaves him to deal with the consequences. At least she does apologize to Hunt for being a dick at one point, but I'd prefer if she didn't spend most of the book acting like a dick to begin with.
Ruhn and Lidia were this book's saving grace. I kept wishing they were the main couple because they were great, and I wanted the story to spend more time with them. Lidia was such a badass, so clever and sneaky. I love sneaky characters who know how to play along with the game in order to achieve their goals and there aren't nearly enough leading women out there like this. I don't know that we got enough justification for why she joined the evil side to begin with though, and I feel like the explanation for why she changed sides was kind of flimsy. Ruhn is almost perfect in every way, with a major exception for
Other characters I really liked spending time with in this book were Nesta, Azriel, Hypaxia, and Aidas.
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Excrement, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Classism
Minor: Child death, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Medical content, Pregnancy
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Death of parent, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Sexual content, Slavery, Blood
Minor: Vomit, Fire/Fire injury
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
As others have said, the threads Maas has laid through other books kind of came together here.
I can’t wait for the follow up of how they handle everything and what comes next. Love most of these characters.
Graphic: Gun violence, Torture, War
Moderate: Death, Sexual violence, Kidnapping
Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder
The pacing was all over the place, why did we get 650 pages of world building and revelations (that I didn’t care about at all) and then everything went down within the last 150 pages? I know that she was probably trying to build the story up to a grand ending but it kinda didn’t work out because over 50% of the book was irrelevant. Everything worked out way too smoothly and conveniently.
I could tell that some (most) of the things were written to serve a certain purpose, like
Bryce was so annoying and disrespectful, I started crying at one point because she got on my last nerve. Same with Tharion and Ithan drowning in self-pity.
Lidia, Ruhn and Hypaxia carried this book!! I need to know more about them. Sarah J Maas is very good at creating characters and relationships/friendships, that was easily my favorite part about all of the books.
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, War
Moderate: Gun violence, Blood, Kidnapping
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Classism
Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy