This book is a great example of what happens when an author lets the plot get too far away from them.

At times, the only thing that kept me wanting to read is my waiting to see when Nesta and other ACOTAR characters would reappear.

Bryce continues to be insufferable and annoying. I wish Ethan and Connor could switch places. Hypaxia definitely got the Bonnie (The Vampire Diaries) treatment throughout the entire book, and while on the subject of her, SJM never really builds upon race as a construct in her world building and the characters are typically sorted by beings, so I don’t understand why Hypaxia and Juniper were mentioned as having “slender brown hands” at random moments in the book. I found this very annoying as she doesn’t do this with other characters, so why do it with them specifically? It became repetitive and made for lazy editing.

And in the same way she did with Aedion and Gavriel, she gives us the strained relationship between Hypaxia and Lydia, brings them around each other at random moments, but never has them interact or address the strained relationship.

I waited patiently for this book (and series) and was left underwhelmed, disappointed, and annoyed which is a shame given how much I enjoy the other two series. Her handling of the characters of color really irked me—specifically Hypaxia.

I am not a fan of these covers or titles, but man do I find her books entertaining when I’m in a book slump and need a quick pick me up.

I’m making a conscious effort to read more fantasy books with a Black or POC MCs as I don’t think they get enough attention or recognition in the book world, and thanks to Book Riot, this YA fantasy came to my attention. I liked the idea of a siren assassin as the female protagonist and the overall plot that connected Saoirse to Hayes. The world building was a little lackluster though and I think there is more story to be told with both characters’ backgrounds, so hopefully that comes with the next book. Still a good read and one that didn’t seem too reminiscent of some of the other fantasy books that already exist out there.

Writing was not that great and this felt more YA thriller than adult thriller…also, the ending is confusing. Is Hudson “Jay” from the shoe store and if so, how did Eve not pick up that he was a student and not a grown ass man? I mean, how big is that school that she would never see or cross paths with him? I mean, as a former teacher, I get that some of these students are looking older these days, but that just doesn’t make sense to me that she would believe that he was a man with a whole wife and baby and not a student!

If Hudson is “Jay” does he suddenly not have an issue with helping Eve cover up and kill Nate because he had experience helping Addie cover up and kill her father? What?

3.5 ⭐️

This book is the perfect example of how children who were raised by emotionally immature parents are traumatized/act in their own adult relationships—both romantically and platonically. If you’ve not read the book by Dr. Gibson, she was on Glennon Doyle’s podcast recently and the whole time I was reading/listening to this book, I thought of that podcast. If more people took the time to do their own healing before they ended up trying to get into or navigate romantic relationships, or even friendships, I swear, the world would be a better place. As someone who has been working on their own healing journey before pursuing a romantic relationship, this book resonated with me. While my mom was not selfish like Emma’s, I felt her trauma based on my lack of relationship from the paternal side of my childhood. I think at the end of the day, curse aside, we all want to find our own Emma and Justin.

Need to remind myself that just because it’s on Audible Plus and a free listen, I don’t necessarily have listen to it.

I’m glad this series was my introduction to Rebecca Ross and her writing, which is absolutely beautiful. While I didn’t enjoy bits of the plot as much as I did Divine Rivals, I’m glad Iris and Roman got the ending they deserved.

I didn’t hate it, but I would have rather enjoyed spending the rest of my entire life without knowing about the terms knot or knotting.