I had a lot of fun listening to this in audiobook format. Even in this retelling, Loki is still my favorite. He's so conniving and knows exactly how to get himself out of trouble, even if it's often at the expense of others. The family dynamic among the Norse gods was also really funny at times. My favorite story was probably the retelling of how Loki drunkenly shaved Thor's wife's hair off because he thought it would be funny. Amazing to think that it ended with Thor getting his hammer. Some of Gaiman's best work, for sure. Pick up a copy if you're into mythology, you won't regret it.

A good bridge to the new series Maas plans on writing. There are still a bunch of strings that haven't been tied up yet. They did just all survive a grueling war, so everyone is healing at their own pace. I'm glad a lot of the characters like Feyre are finding healthy ways of dealing with the remnants of the war, though. Lucien also seems to be doing a bit better, despite the unfortunate situation with Elaine. I'm hoping that their rocky relationship improves as time goes by. I don't blame her for how uncomfortable she is around him. He is the reason she's condemned to immortality even though she yearns to be human, still. I know a lot of people think Azriel is starting to have growing feelings for Elaine, but I think calling them romantic is a stretch at this point. They seem to be more along the lines of friendship for now, but I wouldn't discard the possibility of a romance. I personally, would like Elaine and Lucien together, but that's just personal preference. As long as the romantic relationships are well developed, I'm game for anything. I'm really looking forward to future books and hope we don't have to wait too long. For anyone that felt ACOWAR wasn't wrapped up enough, I think this will partially quench the thirst for more, but not completely, I will explain in more detail below.



**SPOILERS AHEAD**



I've felt since the last book that Rhysand has become more of a caricature because he's almost too "perfect". He doest feel like a real person anymore in a lot of ways. His flaws showed their way through a bit more in this book, but not in the way I expected. Rhysand went a bit overboard with his treatment of Tamlin in this book, as awful as Tamlin is, I think. I'm not for kicking a man when he is down, and Tamlin is pretty much at rock bottom right now. I think that extra piling on from Rhysand was unnecessary.


**SPOILERS END HERE**


Feyre seems to show a lack of understanding that just because she is coping reasonably well with her trauma that not everyone else is. Her treatment of other characters shows a lack of empathy on her part, but I assume that will get unpacked and hopefully resolved in future books. I'm glad we're moving on from Rhys and Feyre ad focal points. I feel like we are done exploring those characters in depth and I'm more interested in everyone else. I'm especially excited to see Nesta and Cassian develop. They have a lot of trauma to work through and I'm sure it will be satisfying to see them work through it together. 

Overall, I feel like this book could have been better and probably could have been shorter. Maas' sex scenes are over the top, as usual, but they didn't overake the main story, so it's fine. This book was weaker than it could have been, but I still think it's worth picking for context for the upcoming books just for Nesta and Cassian at least.

This book didn't end up being what I expected. We definitely get a good amount of exploration of the main character, Tom. The book jumps back and forth through different time periods in Tom's life. I definitely enjoyed his romance with Rose and how that relationship developed gradually. Even after so many centuries, he still misses her, which I think is something that anyone who has ever lost a loved one can relate too. You never truly stop missing them, no matter how much time passes. I already knew as I was reading it that the true enemy was actually in plain sight and that the true conflict was kind of shrouded by the main character's own emotions and manipulated viewpoint of the world. It changes very much by the end of the book, thankfully. I was very satisfied by the ending because it was pretty open ended, which seemed appropriate for the story. This isn't a book solely focuses on a romance, as I expected, but on the growth of the main character as he comes to realize what truly matters in life. An interesting read that I'd recommend if you're looking for something unconventional.

This book explored the emotional and psychological neglect Yen Mah experienced from her father and stepmother up to age 14. I think the most appalling part of this memoir was how her father seemed incapable of caring enough for his daughter to protect her from her stepmother. At some point he even forgot her birthday. He allowed his older children to be treated differently from the children from his second marriage. Her stepmother and father even abandoned her at a convent during the Communist Revolution in China where Adeline would be most at risk. Despite her emotional suffering, Yen Mah persisted in her studies and thankfully was able to attend college in England and move on with her life. It is quite sad that she never truly got what she wanted from her father and stepmother: their love. I hope to read her autobiography in the future to know more about how her childhood affected her transition into adulthood and how her relationships with her siblings continued to develop. An excellent memoir that I highly recommend. Definitely keeping a physical copy of this one!

So there are aliens that are trying to eliminate people that are on their "lyst". Apparently that involves Supermen from various universes. The Superman we know helps the Superman from the Red Son universe fight them off and gets to meet a few heroes from various universes. Kenan Kong is the next target. It seems that when they capture the Supermen, they become completely impossible to trace. I'm really interested to see what their actual goal is with all of them, especially after the end for this issue!

I had always heard complaints from a lot of people about the really nonsensical analogies and similes in this book and now that I've actually read it I totally understand what they meant. I'm not a huge fan of purple prose (overly flowery language) to begin with, but this book in particular just has a lot of comparisons that don't make sense. At some point Mafi compared an open jaw to a shoelace. I also distinctly remember her comparing hate to something that sounded ridiculous. This goes on for a good 2/3 of the book. I think the side characters are what really saved this book to get it to 1.5 stars. The romance is definitely insta-love, which is one of my top, if not my top, pet peeve in books. We are told that Adam and Juliette knew each other before the events of this book and that is used to justify their willingness to put their lives on the line for each other. It's not necessarily that this explanation bothered me, but the execution did. Juliette just tells us that when she was a child Adam was the only one that was nice to her. I feel like the romance would have been more believable and way less insta-lovey if we had maybe gotten direct flashbacks of some of Juliette's experiences with Adam in the past. It would have given us a better feel for the traits each character had that are likeable. However, we didn't. We're essentially just told that we should believe in this romance with very little to back it up. 

Warner, the main villain, is just strangely obsessed with Juliette. His feelings for her are more of a fixation on power. I don't think he actually sees her as a love interest, but really just finds her attractive because of the powers she wields. Even his feelings for her were more understandable to me than the feelings Adam had for Juliette. Warner is crazy and there are reasons beyond just Juliette herself that he is interested in her, so it makes more sense. 

Now getting to the side characters, James is probably one of my favorites. I think his relationship with Adam is very compelling. Adam has taken care of James his entire life and does everything he can to keep him safe. Their relationship was definitely the most interesting to me in the book. You can tell that Adam and James definitely love each other and James looks up to his older brother in a very endearing way. James also has a very bubbly and talkative personality that really brought the book back to life when he was introduced. I feel like Kenji also helped bring some life into the story. He likes to push Adam's buttons, which was actually really funny to watch for me. He's very charming and I was hoping he wasn't just a villain out to get Adam and Juliette. Although, I think even if he was he'd be a very charming villain. 

The end of the book takes a very different turn from what I was expecting, and I'm honestly glad. By the end of the book the setting feels very X-Men Days of Future Past. Let me explain what I mean. We learn that we have a world where Juliette isn't the only one with strange abilities, but that there is an entire rebellion that is made up of people with different powers. These people are being persecuted by the government and are fighting for people's right to live decently. This very much reminds me of how the X-Men have a school dedicated to "gifted" children and helps train them to fight the government that is consistently prosecuting them in a dystopian world. Hence, my conclusion that the story got super X-Men super fast. Kenji is one of these super powered people who has been spying on Adam for some time and was acting as a spy for the rebellion. His power is invisibility, which I think goes super well with his character and fits very well into the story. I'm glad that because they are in the rebellion compound underground James will have some stability and be safe (I don't actually care that much about Adam and Juliette, to be honest).

Overall, I definitely wouldn't recommend this series despite the likeability of the side characters and cool super powered compound at the end. The first 2/3 of the book are pretty uninteresting if not obnoxious to read if you're not a fan of a having similes and analogies that make no sense every other sentence. The two main characters don't have any distinct personality traits that make them likeable to the reader. Since this book does focus pretty largely on the romance, it just makes it hard to actually care about the romance when you can't even get yourself to really care about the characters. I personally highly enjoy character driven stories, and there isn't enough character build up for the romance to be believable. It's going to be a thumbs down from me for this one. I may continue the series just to see if there is any improvement, but I'm not guaranteeing I will. If I do continue it it's not because it's good, I can tell you that much.

I went into this book with high expectations and I'm glad I was not disappointed. The world building was very to the point and the exposition didn't feel forced. At times I found myself asking questions about what the characters were talking about in conversation, but it would be explained through context as the story progressed. I actually wish more authors did exposition like this. The relationships between characters were well fleshed out. Even for characters like Merik and Kullen, which we didn't see an excessive amount of, we got enough exposition to be able to infer the depth of their relationship. My favorite character by far was Safi. She can be impulsive but her banter with Merik was probably one of my favorite parts of this book. Dennard succeeded in making each character have strong motives for their actions. I'll probably wait a bit before I keep reading the rest of the series because book 3 doesn't come out until January 2019 and I'd rather read book 2 as the release date gets closer. Really great book, though. I highly recommend it for anyone into fantasy!

Edit after reread in 2022:

It had been a lot of years since I had read this and I found that I had forgotten a lot, so I decided to reread it in 2022. I feel like this was as enjoyable as I remember it being. There is very detailed world building that becomes more relevant in the sequels that I appreciated more on a reread. I actually took notes of details I think are important and that I might forget for future reference, which was very helpful in terms of connecting the dots for things I do remember reading in the second book. I'm looking forward to catching up on all the books published so far so I can be ready for the upcoming last book in the series. I think this is a series that definitely benefits from having the books read back-to-back because the small details really become important later, so that would be my main recommendation. I still stand by what I thought initially, though. A great series!

This book serves as a great portal to what life is like for many black people living in the United States today. Starr is the main character in the story and unfortunately feels like she must put on a mask when she goes to her predominantly white wealthy private school. She does everything possible throughout most of the story to not seem "ghetto" when she's at school, which has so many negative implications about stereotypes that are propagated about the black community. It is a very real issue though. In the book, Starr has the misfortune of seeing her friend Khalil be shot by a white police officer after they leave a party. All Khalil did was ask why he was stopped and then proceed to ask Starr if she was okay while grabbing a comb from his car. Unfortunately, that was enough for him to be shot to death and then be pegged as a drug dealer by the media. The rest of the book deals with how this affects Starr and her perspective on her own social identity.

The parts I enjoyed most about this book are the moments where characters were able to have open conversations about race and address racist comments as not being acceptable. Hailey was by far my least favorite character, but she did a great job serving her purpose in the story. She represented people who fail to understand race relations for what they are. She represents those people that are racist and unapologetic about it when they are corrected. She is an example of those who lack empathy for the unequal treatment others experience in the world. I think she is a good contrast to Chris. Chris is ignorant in many ways on race issues. Despite this, he is willing to listen and understand where he goes wrong when he does. He comes to befriend many of Starr's friends in her neighborhood because he is open to breaking down any misconceptions he may have. My favorite example of this is probably when he has a conversation with Starr and her friends about black people having strange names. The moment he realizes he has made a blunder about the issue he doesn't retaliate and is even apologetic about it.

This book has characters that feel real and are a reflection of what a lot of black America is going through. It's very well written and addresses social issues in a way that isn't subtle, but definitely realistic. I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants to better understand the Black Lives Matter movement as well as get a well written story that has characters that progress together with the events of the plot.

Reread 12 March 2025 to 24 March 2025:

On a reread, this book still holds up very well. I participated in a book discussion that brought something up that I had not thought about before. Iesha, Seven's mom, is often referenced in the book as being a neglectful parent. There is support for this in the text which leads to her tense relationship with Seven. However, there is also a lot of commentary in the book about the way tha she dresses and how she speaks. It bordres on slut shaming. I don't think this is necessarily on purpose. Since we are only getting Starr's perspective and she is biased against Iesha; she gives us a more negative view of her. Iesha clearly cares for Seven in her own way. This is displayed specifically when she protects Seven at he expense of herself being beat by King and later hospitalized. This however gives off the message that she must be punished to be redeemed and I'm not sure if I'm a fan of that.

So, I got the impression that there was legitimate reasons why so many people rave about this series as a whole and love Warner so much, but I got to the end of this series and I don't get it. Warner is an asshole to everyone but Juliette on his best day. I personally never shipped Juliette with anyone. She did finally grow a backbone in this last book, but it felt very unnatural. She spent the first two books feeling sorry for herself, as Kenji very accurately poins out, and then suddenly she wanted to be leader of everything. It just felt like her character progression jumped the shark there and it didn't feel believable because she was such a weak character with little to no ambitions for such a long time. 

What really did annoy the crap out of me in this book was the exacerbation of the love triangle. The initial romance with Adam wasn't believable to begin with because the relationship had such a weak foundation of isolation + hormones= insta-love. It didn't help that Adam got obnoxious as can be once Juliette broke up with him. He became the definition of stalker ex-boyfriend who didn't understand that his girlfriend had broken up with him. I wasn't feeling super warm and fuzzy towards Warner either. My main problem with Warner is that the only time he does anything benevolent is because of Juliette. This makes it very hard to see Warner as having any individual character growth because he only does nice things if his personal feelings for Juliette are involved. This makes him very hard to like because he's a jerk to everyone unless he has something to gain, and even then. Also, it's very hard to see why he fell in love with Juliette in the first place. I get that he spent a lot of time with her, but she didn't have many redeeming personality traits that I could see as being worthy of the level of romantic love he feels for her. The only time Warner was actually enjoyable to read for me was when he interacted with James and that's mostly because the conversations between them were hilariously awkward. I mean that in a completely good way. Warner has the social skills of a snail and James doesn't understand what the word discretion means, so the combination of those two characteristics had me laughing for quite a bit. 

Of course, most of the good in this book is named Kenji Kishimoto. Kenji as always helped a lot to make this book at least partially enjoyable. He tells Juliette where she's is going wrong when he has to and is the best friend someone could ever wish for really. He is also hilariously flirtatious which helped lighten the mood in the book greatly when everyone was being way too overdramatic. For a lot of the time this book read like a bad soap opera. Mafi seems to have chilled out on the horrible metaphors and similes since the first book which made this more palatable for me. I do not recommend this series to anyone who likes main characters that have depth and dislikes insta-love and badly done love triangles like I do. I know there are more books out, but I refuse to continue suffering through this disgrace of a book series. Probably the worst I've read this year. I'm done here.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I thought it would focus more on the relationship between Rachel and Nick, but it's actually written from multiple perspectives. I thought that this book was nice in terms of giving Asians a modern representation that's new. When do we really get to see wealthy Asians represented in media? Almost never. The characters that most interested me were definitely Michael and Astrid. I think that they reflect what Rachel and Nick can become if they allow the pressure from Nick's family to get to them. The author did a really good job of hiding what was going on in their relationship, though. That was really the most interesting part of the book for me. For the most part Nick's family is full of snobbish control freaks, though. They care so much about whether Rachel is from a "good family" or not in the book, especially Eleanor. I was super happy whenever Eleanor was told off, especially by Nick. Eleanor's conversations with Phillip were funny too. She definitely doesn't have the most conventional relationship with her husband, but it was still interesting. This book didn't blow my mind or anything, but it was entertaining and left me intrigued about what was actually happening within the family. A lot of them are hypocrites and their masks end up falling off by the end of the book. Others are just as nice as they seem and actually have good intentions. You really get to know the inner workings of Nick's family and even some secrets about Rachel's at the end. I don't plan on reading the sequels because I liked how open ended this book was and for me it works best as a stand alone. Definitely a different contemporary novel from what I've read before.