There is a real lesson in this issue about the human treatment of prisoners. Sometimes we are the ones that create the monsters. Awesome issue.

The ending of this issue made it all worth it. All I can say without spoiling is that it's been a long time coming. Definitely didn't go the way I expected it to, and man did I get a really good surprise.

Glad that there was more dialogue in this issue and we got to see the Titans go back to their old friendship dynamics. Made me laugh quite a bit.

This review was last updated for my reread in 2022

I waited until Bloodwitch came out to start reading this book because I didn't want to wait to move on with the series. This book focused more on Iseult and Aeduan's relationship from enemies to amicable acquaintances. I really liked the level of distrust that Aeduan still had around Iseult because I think it was in line with his personality. He starts to slowly trust Iseult more and more. Eventually he starts training her as they travel together. Iseult and him are a lot more similar than they initially think and it's something that is very clear by the end of the novel. I'm hoping to have their relationship develop further in the next book.

I also want to see Iseult come to terms with her new powers and the fact that she has Voidwitch capabilities.

On her side of things, Safi has also made new acquaintances. My favorite was definitely Caden since he seems to have a good sense of humor and his true motives are ambiguous

until almost the end of the book

. As the title suggests, this story mainly focused on Merik's character development. Cam largely contributed to him facing his own demons and realizing that a lot of assumptions he had were wrong. I feel that we learned a lot more about Vivia's character in this installment. We get a much more nuanced view of her intentions and actions and a closer look at her complicated relationship with Merik.

By the end of the book they are in a much better place than at the beginning of the series. I think there is still a lot left unsaid between them that I expect will be addressed in future books

. I hope that we get more on Vivia in the next installment because she's one of the more interesting characters. She appears much more confident on the outside than she actually is and it was nice to see her be so vulnerable. 

Overall, this book series continues to hold up on a reread and I actually appreciated it more the second time around (it has gone from a 4 star read to a 5 star read). It's the small interpersonal character moments that are most interesting to me and I'm looking forward to getting more of those. It will also be nice to have all of the main characters we have been following eventually reunite. 

I have only read 4/7 of the books in this compilation of the series. I do plan on eventually going back and reading the ones I have left. so far my favorite book in the series has been The Magician's Nephew.

I attempted to read this years ago. I wasn't as interested in the book as I would have liked and ended up leaving it unfinished. I don't have any particular interest in attempting to re-read it so it will probably stay as a DNF. 

Thriller usually isn't a genre I reach for, but I wanted to experience Krysten Ritter's writing for myself. I've also been trying to read books outside of my comfort zone and this seemed like a good option. Overall, I think this book was pretty enjoyable and easy to get through. Abby was a very persistent character and seemed to be very perceptive of many of the unhealthy behaviors she was subject to by her classmates in high school in the past. Her struggle with bad coping mechanisms in the past are mentioned only a bit and I would have wanted to know a bit more about her life in Chicago after she left Barrens. I had a lot of trouble discerning who was trustworthy in Barrens, which I guess is what you want in a thriller novel of this nature. I even questioned sometimes if Abby was a reliable narrator. I think this is a very solid debut novel. The only thing is that I feel this is something that could easily be adapted into a screenplay. After reading this I'm convinced Krysten Ritter should write a pilot episode or some kind of screenplay. In interviews she has mentioned how this was originally something she had in mind for a screenplay, so that's probably why sometimes it felt like I was reading scenes from a TV show. That isn't something that was negative or anything, just something I noticed. But once again, not a bad book at all.