I liked this one more than the first book, but if it wasn't for Kitay, I'm not sure I would even be able to put up with Rin a lot of the time. I understand she's not meant to be your average "good" heroine, per se, but instead of having a proper motivation of her own, she just sort of flip-flops around, always snatching to whatever is closest at the time.

The beginning of the book was boring as hell and I almost didn't continue on (this was a quality of the first book as well). I started tuning it out while playing a game, but once the Republic actually got started, it began to get really interesting to me.

I find Rin's complicated relationship with Nezha to be the most interesting in this one. It was really flimsy in the first book, but this time it felt more engrossing. They are always coming together on some things and clashing on others which makes it very interesting to parse through. I feel really sorry for him, a lot of the time, especially toward the end of this book because he definitely began to see the extremes of his father's regime and was helpless to do anything about it.

I love Kitay a lot and I feel like his character gets the short end of the stick. He's the sidekick who is just 'useful' and sacrifices a lot of himself for Rin when she definitely doesn't deserve it. It's hard to tell if they are really even friends, half the time, but that's Rin with everyone, really. Obviously Kitay deserves better than putting up with her.

This is a terribly written review and I almost didn't write anything at all, but I wanted to get some thoughts down before starting the next book.