Reviews

Okay, I have very mixed feelings about this book, but they are leaning towards negative.

I was looking forward to more on the Dead Men and I was definitely enjoying it at the start, but as soon as

Valkyrie

was revealed I... didn't lose interest, exactly, but it was like, why? What is the point? It didn't feel necessary at all, and it made everything way more confusing than it should have been. I expected a straightforward story about Dead Men shenanigans, not

more exposition on how unpredictable time travel is. Come on, it's supposed to be a PREQUEL. I love Valkyrie as much as the next guy, but she doesn't need to be in everything.

It just... really was not needed in this plot and felt incredibly out of place.

It did pick up near the end so it was, overall, a pretty enjoyable read, but not something I would go through again.

Some extra gripes I had:

• This may just me be getting older, but I feel that the humour isn't as good as it used to be in the earlier books. There are way too many "haha we're so amazing and hilarious" jokes like bro, we get it. Plus the "literally I literally mean literally" stuff was annoying the first time, no need for it to be there twice.

• How is

Valkyrie STILL being like "waa waa I can't do this it makes me feel bad boo hoo"

after all they've been through? It just feels so forced at this point.

• All that set up for

Ghastly and Rapture's relationship

and for what? It just got completely erased. The book would've been 97% the same without all that. I dunno, it just didn't really add anything, and even though I was rooting for them, it amounted to nothing.

• Adding on to that,

every death was meaningless because a) we already know what happens in the future books and b) the timeline got reset anyway.

So it was just a whole lot of nothing. This book could've worked so well as a study of the Dead Men and their relationships but nah, we HAVE to keep the focus on

Valkyrie

and beating up the bad guys.

• Even if you can somehow argue that there was character development in this book it doesn't matter because

IT ALL GOT ERASED. Like cmon man, how is this a prequel if it didn't even technically happen?? It's just Valkyrie saving the world, again.

• Not to mention that while supposedly being a Dead Men-centric book, Shudder and Hopeless were still shoved to the side, as always. There were times where those two seemed to be absent, so I would backtrack trying to figure out where they went, only for there to be no indication that they're anywhere but the current scene. My boys deserve better.

I would probably give it a 2 but it gets an extra .5 for

Saracen/Dexter kiss (even if was alternate versions of them).

Content Warnings