June 14, 2025: 4/5 stars

It's hard to review this in a vacuum, since I feel like my opinion on this book would depend on the payoff in future books for the mysteries they're setting up here.

But what I did like the most about this book was the worldbuilding (in the form of the new lore for creatures that existed in the previous trilogy, and how they fit into this new world), and the build-up of the story. The first book was interesting in that it was cool to see how this world and the powers grew over the centuries, but it did feel low-stakes compared to the previous trilogy. This book starts to go into the larger implications of the events of the series, and I'm left excited to see where it could lead.

However, the main aspect that's holding me back from loving this series as much as the first is the characters. To me, Wax feels more like a typical fantasy book protagonist, so he just doesn't feel as real to me as Vin and the others, who had clear flaws and who I got to see grow over time. And the story and characters treat him as such an important figure, with seemingly no justification. For Vin, it was clear in the beginning and especially by the end that things about her made her so special and central to the story. I don't feel that yet with Wax, which makes it feel somewhat forced. Maybe later on we'll learn more information to make that make sense, but I'm not fully buying that an essentially normal person like Wax could be so central in the matters of immortals and gods.

April 17, 2016: 4/5 stars