RATING: Cover - 5 stars, Writing - 5 stars, Plot - 5 stars, Characters - 4.75 stars, Pacing - 3.75 stars, Enjoyment - 4.5 stars, OVERALL RATING - ⭐️4⭐️ STARS

This book was so good. Like it had made me feel things I don’t really feel when I read books or even sequels for that matter.

Holly Black is such a good writer. She can write so good and I can imagine everything she writes so vividly. Her world building is phenomenal! We got even more world building (or added on world building) than we did in the Cruel Prince. And she can make evil characters. If Holly Black wants us to feel like her characters are evil, she can make us feel that. I also feel like the character development in this book was so absolutely amazing.

The sexual tension between Cardan and Jude is so real. I can feel it, almost like energy through the pages of my book. The scenes of Jude and Cardan kissing in this book are so god damn hot and sexy too. The amount of tension and sexiness in this book is real. And it’s even more hot because they both have an equal amount of authority and power.

The amount of plot twists and turns in this book is so shocking. Going back to how Black can write, this is a big strong suit of hers. Holly Black can write a fucking plot twist so well. You would never even be able to see it up close until your right by it and your thinking ‘how could I have not seen this coming?! I’m so stupid’. But in all honesty you really can’t see it coming. It just whips out of nowhere and your so shocked you have to put the book down for a few minutes and reread the page a few more times before it finally processes in your head.

Can we talk about how much I love Jude?! Jude is so strong, she’s caring, she’s smart, and she’s such a badass. Jude Duarte might just be one of my all time favorite main characters and female MCs because of all of this and so much more. Like she’s such an enjoyable character to read about.

I also love Cardan Greenbiar. He’s literally what I think is so sexy. Cardan is evil, hot, smart, and again he’s a badass too. He also becomes more caring towards the end as well. He’s probably my favorite ‘villain’ character I’ve ever read about and my one of my favorite male MCs because of all of this.

I do have something to complain about though. The pacing for the first 100-150 pages is so bad. It’s literally so slow and that’s why I’ve been reading it for 7+ days. Normally a book like this takes me 1-2 days MAX. So I was a bit surprised when I kept procrastinating this book and putting off reading it. And it was all because of the pacing. Now while it did pick up towards the end, I still really thought the pacing was pretty bad within the beginning and early middle.

But those are my thoughts. I would give this book 5 stars if the pacing was better in the beginning, but otherwise this is one of my favorite sequels of all time. Ok thank you ✌