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Onyx Storm is an exciting continuation of the Empyrean series with an INSANE ending. My favorite thing about this book is how open and proud Xaden is to love Violet. It was so beautiful to see him declare himself at every opportunity. Here are some thoughts I had about each act of the book:
The start of this book was admittedly jarring because the tone and style were very different than the previous books. After a few chapters, Yarros is able to return to her normal style, which improves the book. I found the beginning of the book to be very frustrating to read, as was the majority of Iron Flame, for various reasons. I think there are often too many moving parts and variables in this book, which makes this book move slower than the previous books in the series. I also think this often left Yarros glazing over important moments and details. However, knowing her, everything she glazed over will become uber important in the next book.
The book continues to improve heading into the second act of the book. I think this is where we saw the most character growth, especially in Violet and Ridoc. I also enjoyed the world building that took place in this section of the novel, but again I felt that there was way too much going on and that really took away from the enjoyability of the book.
The final act of the book was easily the best. It was action packed, and filled with conflicts for each of our main and supporting characters. The way Rebecca Yarros develops her plot twists is very impressive, and I was hanging onto every word she wrote. I was very surprised at this stage of the book that Yarros decided to change narrators multiple times. While I do think it was necessary to see the action in these chapters, I found it a very jarring change from previous precedent in the series. One benefit to the changing narrators is that it greatly built the tension of the novel.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this novel! It is a great addition to the series and I cannot wait for the next book. I hope we get more answers in the following book, and that Rebecca reigns things in a bit in the next novel.
Graphic: Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Grief
Minor: Death, Medical trauma, Death of parent
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma
Anywho, here were some of my thoughts I put in my Nites app whilst reading this book:
- Who the fuck is Lewellen???
- Why is Halden such a loser? I was expecting this crazy cool, Casanova, charmer, manly man, guy to slide in and give Xaden a case of major jelly belly but he was the most irritating little embarrassing prick? Like give Xaden a challenge for once please???
- Violets Dad is really terrible at hiding his favouritism and I hate how he decided to make things 10x harder than they had to be. How about a spark notes version? Why does Violet have to read all your LOCKED journals about plants to get to the pertinent information? I know he’s dead but I don’t like him.
- I’m quite tired of all this travelling YAWN
- I think there’s too many characters at this point. We are losing focus. There’s first, second, third years AND the graduates of the fliers AND the riders. There’s also old people and relatives and weird aristocrats, and most of them also have DRAGONS whose names I’m supposed to remember. Oh, and we are going on a field trip to 5 different islands that have even more new characters to remember (not to mention the islands aren’t even on the friggin map so idk where tf we are). Honestly this bitch (me) is LOST.
- The smarty pants isle took death by chocolate way too literally
- First things first Amaralys
- Broccoli for president
- I low (high) key ship Dain and Sloane
- I really really hate the resurrection trope, like girl, you have too many characters, let them stay dead, KILL MIRA, ITS OK, I CAN TAKE IT
- xaden… WE WERE ROOTING FOR YOU. WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU. HOW DARE YOU.
- if I woke up married and didn’t remember accepting that shit I’d be quite miffed
Anyways, to sum up my thoughts: I think RY went a little overboard in her world building, and invited too many characters into the plot (like idk where tf my favs from the last two books were half the time).
I hope for the next one she reels it back a notch so it doesn’t seem so haphazardly put together. Give us the fun and DAMMIT YARROS, FOCUS!
Still had fun, and enjoyed returning to this world but… meh…
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Despite it tearing me apart, I did absolutely love this book!! It gave me all the feels! Including all the anxiety… Xaden just kept leveling up despite everything! And I am here for it! Andarna is still precious! And I have a whole new love for Ridoc! That man is the greatest! I’m sure there’s a lot more to say, but like I said I’m still trying to figure out all my feelings.
The only thing I don’t like is how long I have to wait for the next book.. I’m going to be dying over here!!
Graphic: Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Genocide, Torture, Abandonment
Minor: Addiction, Vomit, Death of parent
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Addiction, Chronic illness, Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, War
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment
Minor: Cursing, Deadnaming, Torture, Vomit, Grief, Medical trauma
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, War, Injury/Injury detail