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I have come to love this story so so much, of course I eagerly kept reading the third installement. After the shocking events at the end of The Winner's Crime, I knew I couldn't trust myself anymore and I knew that my heart could be just as easily shuttered again. It was the beginning that really nagged at me, I felt so much pain and confusion, wanted to scream at the book, scream at everyone who interrupted me reading.

Only to finish this rather unsatisfied. With this books, it's hard to say a lot about the story without spoilering it. But all I can say is while I did enjoy this book, and think it did a great job as a conclusion, I felt some parts felt odd. While book two richly told the policital side of war, this one focuses on war itself. On the battle, on strategies, on fighting. For the first time, we don't only see intrigues and cunning plans, but really how soldiers are executing their orders. What could go wrong, and what decisions have to be made. No matter the cost. This was a very interesting aspect since after all the games we were witnesses of it gave us a fresh new look on many things. And again, I felt that Marie Rutkoski's writing improved yet another time. Especially the way she used the change of POVs in times of fast actions blew my mind. We kept seeing the same event from different eyes. I loved it, and felt a own kind of adrenaline pumping through my veins when I was reading.

However, I had my problems with this read. To explain myself further, I will have to go into more details which I have labelled as spoilers.

Spoiler

My biggest problem was the memory loss of Kestrel. My heart was throbbing when Arin went for her; it felt like someone ripped it out of my body only to hold it next to my ear so I could hear each thump-thump while I turned the page; one after another. When the realization hit that Kestrel, in fact, has no memory of Arin when he rescued her, I felt my heart put slowly back to place only to shadder in bits and pieces. Watching them interact, seeing the distrust Kestrel's, feeling how non-existent the tension between these two was, turned me at some point desperate. I hoped that she would gain back her memories, I hoped the tension between these two would return in a way we've seen before, and it would fill us up even more. But it just lacked of it? Until the very end of the book, Kestrel couldn't gain everything back of her memory. However, that wasn't the problem since she remembered enough - enough to not question her feelings for Arin, enough to know what has been done to her, enough to be in some way herself again. And while we should have gotten exactly that feeling, I did not. Kestrel felt off-character, even as she was regaining her memory and back at cunning and strategics. Arin's character felt more broken than ever due to that, and he didn't really recover, either. And I still kept rooting for them, hoping for moments that would tear my heart apart. But they never came. As sweet and slow-burn their romance was, it did not fit their dynamic from the previous books, and I couldn't see myself satisfied with the ending.