I finally sat down and finished this. I think this entire arc was unnecessary. It felt rushed. The pictures are very gimmicky, were not good to any degree, and printed on full-colour pages skyrocketing the prices of the books.

To begin with, the ending is not at all satisfactory. It leaves so many open questions, and not in a good way. Secondly, it only resolves the major conflict with Caul. it leaves so many characters' fates undetermined and entire concepts untouched. One thing that annoys me so much with this expansion si that the ideas were there to write a better series, ie American Pecularidom, or even the emancipation of the Peculiardome. Who wouldn't want to read that?!

There were way too many characters here to keep track of them. If you thought The Library of Souls had a large cast of characters, think again. I think this should have been a spin-off, not a sequel, and included new characters as the main cast. Or, alternatively, Jacob and his adventure in America. Again, so many interesting concepts introduce and not used at all to their fullest potential. What bugs me the most is that instead, they opted to go the very generic route of giving everyone new powers and introducing a prophecy.

When it comes to the idea of the emancipation of the Peculiardome, that would have been amazing. It does not seem to be resolved here in the slightest. We know there are peculiar who do not want to go back to loop life, and those who are. None of this is explored at all beyond what was needed to serve for a final battle.

And again, this whole spy network across America run by Jacob's grandfather? So cool, so underused. There could easily have been two solid trilogies from these two ideas alone. One following Jacob and one with a whole new cast of characters.

Now onto some things I enjoyed. As for all of Rigg's books, this was well-written and entertaining. His writing styles read too easily and you can fly through the book. my delay in reading it was due to not caring enough to pick it up, however in the times I did read it I flew through chapters in a sitting.

Next, I like Noor a lot as a character, and as a love interest for Jacob. I've always found the Emma/Jacob dynamic unsettling and Noor is just such a sweetheart. I would have loved for this series to focus on her or to get some Noor-focused books in the future. I do wish she and Jacob got to spend more time together, as like everything their relationship felt rushed during the first two books then suddenly irrelevant near the end of the last one.

Third, I loved how it brought up how tragic a loop life is. It was something I never considered in the original books. It was kind of funny the way they acted, but seeing the unrest and realizing the toll it has on some of the Peculiar children, made me even more dissatisfied with the ending. These are people who are taken from their families at a young age and are forced to live the same day over and over again never leaving their loop and never again. It's tragic and again, a missed opportunity.

i am by no means swearing off reading new peculiar books as they come out, but I will certainly be looking to buy them cheap or loan them from a library. I still think there is a lot of p[potential in the world and hope that it gets developed and explored further.