Am I the only one who ran into this book looking for some bloody answers and just ended up… well, rather confused. This whole Underhill is a person but isn’t but there's a doorway, but there isn’t, but is place but is also just pretending to be a place… thing… Man. Man oh man. Not to mention the heroes and villains switch and trade vocations with each bloody breath I take. I cannot keep up. 

I also can't deal with this “quirky” attitude crap. It really makes me hate Kallik rather than find her cute and endearing. And I will never, NEVER, take her seriously as a queen. 

Really though, even the romance fell flat. I’m pretty disappointed in this series… I won’t lie to you. I’m hoping for a huge flash band finale here. Begging for it. 

 

 

I’m not sure if it’s because I hyped this one up so much in my mind, but I’m feeling pretty let down right now. 

While I (generally) like the main characters, they're all written in this way that I think they’re meant to be “quirky” but, it also really stops me from connecting with them, or taking this book very seriously. I like strong, badass FMC and I absolutely got that with Kallik. That being said, she also super got on my nerves over and over again, for various reasons. Like entertaining Drake. We all know where this romance is going, like, it bothers me so much that we have to go through the nonsense crap with him. This is also clearly going in a “she's the only one who can save us” trope direction, which is not my favorite.

That being said, I’m interested in seeing where we go with the politics here. I feel like there's so much that could be done, and we’ve really barely scratched the surface. (aka, I have a lot of unanswered questions).

Truthfully, this story was very mediocre, and (dare I say) overdone and kind of typical…

 

 

This was the finale that I kind of expected to come out of this series. Nothing blew me away, but it just felt right.

I really enjoyed getting to know the sisters better, (including Violie). I really enjoyed getting to know their significant others more. I really enjoyed court life and politics and coups and rebels. Those parts of the story were super entertaining and those are the parts that really drew me back in when I got BORED. 

Oh my gosh, though. There were too many lulls where nothing was going on for me. There was too much of a focus on relationships, without the relationships even going anywhere. I feel like we went through the same conversations over and over again and the same arguments right after those. I really felt like we were going around in circles just for shits and giggles. 

But then something big would happen and I’d get drawn right back in and do it all over again. 

I missed the big bands in this series though. Nothing ever was a “WOAH” moment. Everything made sense, and felt right, but nothing blew me away. The relationships were all pretty lackluster and chemistry-less, but with a few awe moments that made me smile. 

This series was full of those moments that stopped me from disliking it, but not enough of those moments that it had me loving it. 

 

 

This was pretty on par with how I felt about the first book in the series, not too much changed for me, so I think this  review is going to be pretty similar.

I really enjoy all of the scheming that goes on here. I love feeling like I’m on top of everything and keeping up, and then having the rug pulled out from under me. The only real issue I have is that it doesn’t really dive any deeper. That rug kinda gets slowly pulled out, it's never yanked, so my reactions are more of a “oh, yeah, okay” rather than an “OMG NO WAY”. 

I really like the inclusion of Violie, but I also really missed Sephronia. She was by far my favorite of the three, and her relationship with Leo was really the only one of the three that I really connected with. I felt a little blind sided having to restart with Violie. Also, I can't complain too much because I really liked being given the chance to kind of get to know the other sisters a little bit better, and I think if we kept Sophie around she would just continue to outshine everyone.

I also have to say that this book felt a little drawn out. I’m not sure if there was really enough going on in this book for as long as it really was. I was bored more than once, and found myself (continuously) waiting for something to happen or someone to make a move. While I love that this series has such an emphasis on the political side of things, a lot of it feels so YA and so young that it just feels too immature for reality. Like.. these girls are supposed to be queens, but I really don't think they handle themselves, or their court issues in an adult-y way, let alone a Queenly way. Maybe that's what I get for reading a YA series in the first place?

Really though, this is a pretty good series, you just kinda have to push through the lulls. 

 

 

Let me make myself clear here. I’m giving this story 2 stars purely because I like the little deal with the devil thing we’ve got going on. That’s pretty much it. I didn’t really love anything else in this story. Rapunzel is badass, so that's fun. But that’s it. 

The plot has a million holes, the storyline is not well hashed out and super shallow. There's close to no relationship development - everyone is just.. In love right from the get go. 

BUT. I like the deal with the devil. Where does it fit into this story? Nowhere. Why is it there? No clue. Is there any other supernatural shit in this book/series? No. But I love a good revenge plot, and Quinn’s was the best, so I was there for it. 

 

 

Rapunzel is my Disney Princess. Tangled is my jam, I love everything and everyone and maaaaan oh man. I had to disassociate. I had to physically stop reading at some points just so I could make sure my brain knew not to connect these two together because this book… Ugh. This book was not it. 

It started off as everything I wanted it to be. Man. Those chapters of Wren finding Rapunzel and going back to her time and time again. My heart couldn't handle it. I was so happy reading those first like… 50 pages. 

And then everything took a turn. Not a turn that I liked. I LIKED the idea that there could be politics involved, but it was just so poorly done. And it was so cringey. Beyond cringey. There was zero development in any relationship that wasn't between Rapunzel and Wren. And the development in their relationship was a bloody mess. A MESS. 

I didn’t like the characters. I didn’t connect with the characters. The story was shallow, and not well developed. And I got super lost early on because Wren was being trained to be a knight, and then all of a sudden his dad was being murdered by John even though they were besties… and like… did I miss the part where they weren’t besties anymore? 

I’m reading the second book because it’s short, and I can get to the conclusion of this story quickly. 

 

I didn’t need this. I think Winterspell ended things quite nicely, and I liked the air of mystery it left behind. This took that away from me, and I don't think it did the story any kind of justice. 

This was the prequel I needed so badly. I spent all of Winterspell entirely on Anise’s side, and I finished Summerfall EVEN MORE on Anise’s side. Honestly. I loved Rinka. Alban is useless - don’t care two pennies for him, but Rinka was everything.

After reading this one, I wish even more that Anise had been able to wipe everyone out. They deserve it. I’ve never been more on the villain's side in my whole life. 

I’m glad I read this after Winterspell. I don’t think I would have enjoyed Winterspell as much as I did if I had read this one first. 

 

I appreciate that this story was full of political intrigue; a lost prince, a power hungry tyrant out for revenge, and a sweet naive girl stuck in the midst of it all. I really enjoyed the premise of it, but something about it just didn’t work. 

It started off really strong, and I was super interested in where the story was going, but it kind of petered out, and I was starting to get bored by about 100 pages in. Nothing much had really happened and we hadn't even jumped ship to another world yet. 

Shortly after, things started to pick up again but I just don't think my interest ever truly recovered. There must have been some romance tucked away in a page I missed somewhere because based on other reviews, these two had some major chemistry… or something. I didn’t catch that.  What I did catch was Nicholas saying some pretty shady asshole shit, and then Clara just forgiving him no questions asked (on more than one occasion) and boom now they're soulmates… or something.

I think I was rooting more for Anise than I was supposed to be, and I think I was hating on Drosselmeyer more than I was supposed to be. Maybe that's why I never really connected with this book - I was too invested in the wrong characters… It truly felt to me like Anise should not have been the villain. Like it was her fault that people treated her like an abomination and killed her parents. 

This book felt a bit on the younger end of the YA spectrum. The writing seemed quite immature to me, and there was nothing I ever fell in love with in this story. For the most part, I enjoyed it. I moved through it pretty quickly and it was an easy read. 

 

This was my favorite installment of the series.

I’m usually not a person for a shifter story, so I was a little weary going into this one, but it was so well done that I couldn't help but fall in love with Faelyn and Evander. The development in their relationship as it turned from enemies to friends to lovers was so captivating and it captured my whole heart from the very beginning. 

I also really enjoyed the magic system in this book. It was just a breath of fresh air and not something that felt super over done and tedious. 

While the twist wasn't really a twist (I think we all saw it coming), I still swooned and obsessed. Honestly, I really loved this story. It was such a strong finale to the series and I couldn't have asked for better.