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syllareads 's review for:

The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons
5.0
adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Alright, so first of all, Jenn Lyons.
How dare you.

The Memory of Souls is Jenn Lyon's third book in the Chorus of Dragons series, and I will be honest here: my expectations weren't that high. Not abysmally low, absolutely not - but I hadn't enjoyed book 2 as much as was a bit hesitant to continue. I was scared I wouldn't like this at all, that I'd discover it's just really not my style and that I'd sadly have to leave this series behind.

Suffice to say that I was wrong lol

The book more or less seamlessly picks up where book 2 ended (in accidental death and destruction) and has the exact same narrative structure the other two books up to this point had; namely, we have at least 3 different planes of narration right off the bat. One, presumably set in the present, with whoever is talking about the actual happenings inside the story, two, one first-person narration (Kihrin in the first book, Janel in the second, back to Kihrin in this one) and three, one or multiple third-person narrations from various other characters throughout the book's happenings.

Now either I have come to my senses (absolutely possible) OR book 3 has something book 2 did not because I fucking loved it??
I genuinely cannot tell you why! But it was brilliant! I'm confused!

Moving on from that, we have pretty much the same cast, with some additional mentions, and what can I say, I adore my gays. They're smart, yet stupid. They're destined to destroy the world through sheer stupidity, honestly (because none of them are evil! and if they are, they have good reason! so there). Yet they absolutely cannot flirt, or pretend to be functional (unless we're talking about Teraeth, designated babysitter of a bunch of dumbasses. And really, he's still not a good role model LOL). I just love them to pieces.

The stakes in this one were ASTRONOMICALLY high. I don't think I breathed during the last parts of the book! Nonetheless, and I need you all to understand this: these books are VERY character-driven. If you don't like gay banter and stupidity, you might not be patient enough to truly enjoy this masterpiece and what it has to offer....because goddamn. I need to read book 4 like, NOW.

All in all: this was probably the book I loved the MOST in this series. I'll say it now, Jenn Lyons is a genius. Also, she has toxic ships that are shipped by other people in her story. Yes, this is important to me

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