I am extremely thankful that this third book was a massive improvement from book 2, and a return to the banter, charm, decadent world, and empowering message that made me fall in love with the first book. This book had heart. I wanted to get lost in this world, again. I wanted to root for these characters.

But it also had many flaws.

The pacing is still terrible. Very slow, a lot of redundancies, a lot of speculation. After 1,500 combined pages the jokes have gone stale. It's tiresome to hear Poppy stabbed Cas once, Poppy EEPed at nudity, Cas quoted Willa's diary... And while obviously a book needs to describe new settings, I started going numb to all the lifeless descriptions of flowers, architecture, clothing, and pelts. I was reminded of how Tolkien fans got tired of hearing about foliage, or GRR Martin fans got tired of feasts. And yet, despite all the words written... I still don't have a clear concept of the hierarchy of creatures, what makes the difference between a god, a deity, an Atlantian, an Ascended... I don't understand why or how mortals can serve in the highest seats of government in the hidden Atlantian city. There are characters who have traveled as our heroes' inner circle whose race, appearance, personality, significance... I could not tell you. (What do we know, really, about Emil, Naill, or Delano?!) And new characters that were introduced were... problematic. They seemed included just to have "a black girl" or "a gay guy" name dropped, and then never included in the plot in any meaningful way, barely even mentioned again after their introduction. Token representation. Bait. This book and the last should have been condensed into one: The book could have focused on establishing the core characters and the hidden world that Poppy was naive about; Poppy and Casteel could have grown and fallen back in love over the course of one long book; it could have ended with Poppy falling in love with Cas's found family, and claiming her birthright to protect them, looking out on the horizon from the capital as tomorrow's problems have finally become today's...

Speaking of sloppy characterization... Cas continues to be disorienting, with his constant colloquial curses, PDA, innuendo, and attention called to his erections (even in front of his own parents!). I'm personally disgusted that he keeps trying to solve trauma with sex. He even, at one point, insists that true love can only be found by people who lust for each other. He is still condescending at times, like when he makes a joke with Poppy about compromising over not executing people without fair trial... a compromise he doesn't intend to keep. Her first attempt at governing as Queen is to show mercy, and he tries to undermine her... Not a good start. He still reads like a "bro" too much of the time, and takes me out of the story, like I'm suddenly in 50 Shades of Grey.

And speaking of feeling like I'm in another book... Too much of this book felt like a ripoff of Game of Thrones, and I couldn't understand if it was meant to be a parody, an homage, or if the author wasn't aware of how much pop culture had seeped into her writing. And frankly... if I can't tell... then it's not ENOUGH for a parody, and not subtle enough to be an homage. But Poppy's many titles, the insistence on "My Queen", "Meyaah Liessa", waking the dragons in The Shadowlands to the east, fighting the army of the undead, summoning fire to obliterate her enemies... This is Daenerys fanfiction. Even some of the phrasing: War of the Two Kings/ War of the Five Kings. From Blood and Ash/Fire and Blood... I know GRR Martin doesn't have a monopoly on high fantasy phrases, and even his books are based on real history. But... Crown of Gilded Bones/ A Golden Crown... Too many to be a coincidence.

When the book is trying to be original, it's also aware that it wrote itself into too big of a situation, so conflicts just... magically go away. "We need to convince Cas's parents that we're worthy! Just kidding, they love us immediately." "The people will never accept us, and revolt! Just kidding, they all bend the knee with glee." "The Ascended are at Spessa's End and The Atlantian's are circling Carssadonia, war is imminent! Just kidding, no one will attack, everything's fine." "Poppy has been kidnapped, AGAIN! No worries, her assailants are all murdered. But Cas, Kieran, and the gang were shot with paralysis arrows! No, it's fine, they came to the rescue, no problem." "Poppy is dead. No, she's a vampire! No, she's a goddess! No, she's a messiah? No, she's... a plot coupon." After so many false starts, I didn't really take the tension seriously anymore, and was just rushing to the ending.

So... a pretty painting with lots of feeling. But derivative, vapid, and far too long without having much of a message to say.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that this book didn't age well. It was published in 2021, which means it was written during the pandemic. And a new sect of monsters and baddies are introduced: Creatures without mouths or noses, only eyes visible on their faces, and their wranglers are a masked cult... Poppy's only concern about them is "How do they breathe?"... The creatures are called "Gyrms"... GERMS!... YIKES! O_O Somebody was reeeeeally anti-mask mandate.