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zauren 's review for:
A Vow So Bold and Deadly
by Brigid Kemmerer
This final installment in the cursebreakers trilogy brings all the characters from the past two books. In theory, this is exciting as my biggest disappointment with book two was missing the original characters from book one. However, I have to say, I literally didn’t care about anyone in this book.
Okay, that may have been a little harsh, but hear me out. While the plot was exciting and I enjoyed the commentary of ruling peacefully vs ruling by force (the weird, counter-sexism was weird though), the characters made their own problems. This is fine in the first book in a series, but if everyone just learned to communicate, many of the issues would have been solved in half the time.
Another major issue I had was Rhen. I liked him as a character in books 1 and 2. He was complicated and messy and so incredibly imperfect. It made him compelling. SPOLIERS AHEAD:
This book, however, tried to justify him whipping a child. As far as I recall, he never apologizes for this action. He simply says he had to. He had no choice. Essentially he says Grey “made” him do it. Like what?? To add insult to injury, Harper agrees with him??? She’s supposed to be the moral compass out of all the charters. She sometimes messes up, but her whole thing is trying to do the right thing and help those who need it. This was so uncharacteristic. And then, despite Grey not even wanting to rule Emberfall, he takes the throne in the end. He could have given it Rhen and went off with his girlfriend to rule with her and worked as allies, but he took it despite knowing Rhen wanted to rule AND FORGIVING him. Now, I don’t think Rhen SHOULD rule, but that’s beside the point. These characters just made nonsense.