Loved the writing, not sure of the ending. 

Full RTC.

 Love the themes in this book. And the Gary Sinisie movie is legit fantastic. Overall, it's a good book. It could be more fleshed out, as the story feels really rushed (It feels like it really only plays out over what? A couple of days?), but it's still a solid story. This along with Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt would be good rainy day books, just short little books that you can finish fast but still enjoy. 

-This book had kind of an unsatisfying ending. What happened to George after Lennie died? Did he have PTSD from it? What happened? Where did he go?
-This book is just so short that none of the characters are super fleshed out. The most we know about a character is Lennie, that he likes soft things and wants to tend the rabbits and he has a mental disability and he's strong as an ox. And that's about it.
-I loved seeing Candy's perspective on how the plan went awry. He's so heartbroken that they can't go on with the plan.
- EFF Carlson. Maybe we should have shot you instead of the dog, huh?
-Love the themes in this book.

 TD;LR
Christian Lord of the Flies

but it was an experiment the whole time!

-Loved the theme of this book. And it was legitimately terrifying to see all the kids rise up against each other and just turn. So quickly. Especially when Joan turned against Elisha by bringing her to the phone and Alex
-I do think they did a better job of making us more endeared to Elijah and Elisha, but they still have little to no personality.
-I laughed so hard when Elijah was annoyed about 666 being the password. Also when everybody would switch names and there would long things like: Kasey/Ashley/Kari/Jamie/Rachel (as an example). Freaking hilarious
-WHERE WAS MR. MAXWELL?

 This book was okay. It was just a lot slower than the other book.

I loved how it was a psychological experiment the whole time, and I think that's super cool. It's really terrifying to think about, being pulled on strings by puppets while you have zero idea about what's going on.

  The argument that all truths are real isn't a truth. There is one truth, but different viewpoints. But a different viewpoint doesn't make a specific thing true. I could say, "Hamburgers are the worst food ever," but that doesn't make it true. That's subjective. I really debated on whether or not to give it a 2 or 3 stars, but I'll give a 3 because I was genuinely into the story, and when I was tempted to go do other things (I did binge the last like, 250 pages all in one sitting for like a straight 6ish hours with a few breaks in between), it did draw me back in to finish it. 

 I loved the themes in this book, and this book is really entertaining so it was easy to fly through and read a good amount of pages each day. Really entertaining read and it did a great job of tackling the social issues that sadly last even until today. This book was written in 2001, so there was a lack of cyberbullying or things like that, but this book was super enjoyable. Solid. It really led you around trying to have you solve the mystery, and though it was a little obvious, it was still good. The story was very plot driven, and the characters had little to no personality, but that is kind of staple in mystery/horror sometimes, and I did still like the book, so I deem it an enjoyable mystery. 

-Okay, I loved that Norman left Elisha and then went back to save her. I loved how solid his reasons were and how he does seem kind of sad to leave her there.
-Kind of shipped Norman and Elisha till we found out he was kind of a psycho
-My one big complaint with this book is that none of the characters really have personality. You don't feel super connected to any of them, and I can't come up with a single character trait for any of them other than smart, which is obvious for a family working for the government.
-Great use of my fear of spiders and dark, lonely places
-Okay, how did Elisha survive FIFTY spider bites? Like, what, I don't know if I can suspend my disbelief that much, but whatever.

 This series wasn't great. And it was absolutely infuriating the way that Kendare Blake can take the most interesting concepts and write them in the dumbest ways. But this was an okay series. 

-WHY THE HECK did they kill off Mirabella? I seriously felt that there was no reason to do this. It really felt as if it was supposed to be there for shock value, and I hate that they remove like, all the good characters from the books
-Why did Half Moon die? He's survived so long and I feel like this was again just to boost the body count
-Thank God Luke and Billy didn't die. I would've rioted
-I don't like Pietyr in this book. He's just a dick the whole way through. He was so much better in the others
-Katharine's death was okay, I guess.
-Everything just feels, like, really underwhelming
-Okay, how the HECK did the legion curse just break? There was legitimately no reason other than plot device. It just broke because Katharine died? Or because the mist disappeared? That makes no sense. It broke for literally no reason and it makes me mad.

 This whole series is just kind of an...eh. I wish this could have been better though. I feel like this series had a ton of potential, it just didn't have the right author to really make it shine and stand out and be a masterpiece, and that's really a shame. 

 I don't know. These books just get less and less interesting as they go on. 

-The Daphne plotline was cool, but very predictable
-Why the frick is Mira going to the capital? She is obviously going to get murdered
-Why did she kill off Pietyr? Like, all of the good and interesting characters are getting killed off? Katharine is going to get mad at them if she ever resurfaces, and she now has no way of even trying to bear the triplets. Like, how is this going to end? I just don't understand.

-I was so mad that Joseph died. Like, what the heck
-I'm not sure how I feel about Jules and Camden going back
-What's going to happen in the next book? Arsinoe and Mirabella escaped
-Okay, the whole "Katherine is poison" thing was a good plot twist
-I'm honestly sad that Natalia is dead. She was one of my favorite characters
-I love Braddock. He's my favorite. After Camden, but I love him. Why did he have to stay on the mainland??!!!
-It's really getting annoying how she keeps, well, not exactly ressurecting Arsinoe, but she just keeps comig back from near death experiences and it's a little annoying. Decide whether or not she'll die already!
-I laughed so hard at Katharine poisoning Arsinoe with Mirabella in the cell, and then when Miraballa saw her smiling when she thought she was dead, I laughed so hard
-It was so obvious that Katharine was not herself and that it had to do with the Breccia Domain. But she treats it like this big reveal once they know, and it's dumb. And even then, they never explain what's beneath Katharine's skin when she cuts her FREAKING FACE OFF, and they never really explain how they took over Katharine or whatever. It's just really confusing and not well done

Again, this book was disappointing. It was less Hunger Games than I wanted, more politics, but still not a ton of scheming between the queens. The whole series so far it's just been Luca and Natalia scheming, not telling anyone, and the queens being pushed around like pawns. Not what I wanted nor what I was promised. 

 -The tense in which the book is written is really weird
-The back of the book promises you political scheming and a struggle for the throne between sisters, and there is a little of that, but it's mostly just bad romance and teenage dramaa
-It turned really unnecessarily gory like halfway through the book, but in a way where it's trying to shock you rather than progress the story.
-"She starts to laugh... she watches the stitches pull in the mirror until blood spirts down her chin. Jules tries to calm her, and calls for Cait, and Eliis, but Arinsoe only laughs harder." What in the actual FRICK
-Despite the lack of actual good plot, I did manage to make it through the book pretty quickly and it managed to make me interested in it enough to actually WANT to read it 

-The reveal with Arsinoe at the end was FANTASTIC. Very well done, and I did not see it coming, but it does work.
-Pietyr pushes Katharine into the pit. Why? Like, no motivation works unless he's working for the temple. Does he actually love her, or did he do it anyway despite loving her?

 So overall, this book had an amazing premise, but, at least so far, it hasn't been pulled off very well. Hopefully the second book will be better. 

 FANTASTIC BOOK!

Here's the non-spoilery stuff:
-There's a lot of terms that the typical Western audience wouldn't know- or at least that I didn't know, and I'm assuming a lot of others who aren't familiar with what I believe is Middle Eastern influence wouldn't know. Things like shah, shahbanu, names of food, etc. You'd have to figure them out as you went along and they would get mixed up a lot. It's just a little jarring, and it kind of takes you out of the story when you're juggling all these foreign terms
-I ADORE the premise of the book, and I LOVE where the author took it. I was so excited to read this book, and it truly lived up to all of my expectations.
-"I wish I could see it,' she whispered into the night. The night didn't respond, but Azad did." This literally KILLED me and it was fantastic.
-One of the most BEAUTIFUL book covers I have ever seen in my life. Like, I literally just want to frame it for all to see.
 

-Pretty early on in the book, I thought that the div in the dungeon would be the simorgh, and I was very ready to congratulate myself when I saw that from the beginning... and I was very wrong.
-The Shahmar twist was really unexpected. When things wrapped up so early in the story, I had no idea where Bashardoust was going to go with the rest of the book, and this happened a couple of times, but she truly did a great job.
-The whole reasoning of "I'll make your firstborn daughter my bride" made so much more sense than whatever reasoning the div gave in Tahmineh's story.
-I truly just loved this book
-The rose/thorn foreshadowing was AMAZING. I remember thinking in the beginning, "Roses are going to have some significance to the story" and I was right.
-Loved Parvenah, Tahmineh, Azad, and Soraya as characters especially

 Truly loved this book. It will definitely be a favorite of mine. 

 -One thng I don't really like about Ted Dekker's book is the tendency to make Muslim terrorists the villians. There's usually a Muslim trying to destroy America for Allah in a very high position in the operation.
-I LOVE the way Ted Dekker writes his 3rd person views from no one's perspective except this narrator just staring down on the planet. They're just perfect and I can't express the joy that fills my heart when I come across these little paragraphs.
-"The small cargo vessel had made the trip from the Bahamas to Curtis Point- just south of Annapolis and a stone's throw away from Washington DC- dozens of times, each time with a variety of imported goods on board, usually with at least a partial load of exclusive lumbers sold by the pound rather than by the foot." Freaking BRILLIANT line
-This book was really predictable, but it wasn't a bad book in the slightest. It was just, like I said, really predictable.

-It was PAINFULLY obvious that Casius was Shannon the whole time
-Throughout the whole book I was kind of jumping back and forth on whether or not Shannon was Jamal, and he was, so, I was right.
-The book handles the Sula magic thing really weirdly. Like, it's introduced in the beginning, and then kind of in the background when we get Casius' perspective, and it's not really tied up in the end. Is he still affected by the Sula voice? Why was it there in the first place? Why was the staff specifically what started the Sula voice in his head? Is Shannon a Christain now? Like, his plot thread involving Sula is just kind of not tied up, and it's unsatisfying and a little weird.