super tense throughout part one, then the pace really slowed down during part two; despite this because of a lot of new magic systems being brought in and some confusing fighting sequences, i did get lost in it. i did prefer part one beacuse i felt the plot was more structured with violet attending college, in the second part it did feel a little over the place and tons of stuff was happening. however, i loved xaden and violet working on their relationship, which was accurate to me, they did get together in the middle of a revolution/war. the rest of the characters were fleshed out and developed more from the first book. at first i didn't realise how this was going to be stretched out into five books, but after the ending i realised this would not be able to be wrapped up in one book.