1.5 Stars

This book was a hot mess.

To be fair, I did not really enjoy the first book of the series. I gave it a solid two stars. It was okay, but had major flaws. The second book was three stars for me. It was a good reading experience and greatly improved from the first book. This final installment... a complete and total mess.
Here are my main issues.

#1 There was great potential for the fates. The second book set up for an amazing plot. But that's largely ignored in this book in favor of running around after TWO love triangles.

#2 Granted, Scarlet's is pointless and never should have been included. Thankfully it wrapped up quickly, but it was still a distraction and served only as page filler. There was no tension there. We all saw through it.

#3 Now Tella's love triangle? That was pretty much the entire story. The book focused far too much on who Tella was kissing or sharing blood with instead of saving Scarlet and the entire city from the fates.

#4 Legend didn't shine in this book, either. No one did. Even Tella (a much stronger character than Scarlet) was largely useless.

#5 Rescuing Paloma turned out to be 100% pointless. Not satisfying at all.

#6 Too many new characters were introduced with no true development. Even Nicholas and Paloma and "essential" characters felt like an extra in this book.

#7 That ending. W. T. F.

Spoiler

Scarlet on the throne? Scarlet as empress? That undoes everything that Legend worked for as Dante. Plus, Dante was still alive, so the throne would have gone back to him. I get the whole "what if Elentine was Paloma's mother" shtick, but it doesn't mean Scarlet would be accepted on the throne. She even says the people didn't like her after the discovery that she was half fate. This doesn't seem like something that fits her character or Julian's as her fiance by the end of the book.

Yeah. This had potential, but it missed that potential on nearly every mark. I wouldn't recommend this series now. It wasn't terrible as a series, but it was a huge disappointment over all.