I'm super let down by this book. It was boring. Beyond boring. 

Much like the first book, nothing really happens in this one either. There's a couple of disagreements between all of the characters, but it never goes beyond that. And super shy, self conscious and quiet Waylynn immediately forgives the guys every time, so there's no real internal conflict with them either. There's really nothing to this book. 

I mean. There's sex now, so that's a change from the first book… Oh, and the super awkward thing going on with Banks. It feels so forced and weird, and he comes off as such an outsider that he doesn't feel like he belongs.

We still don't get any answers about why Waylynn can hear the guy's thoughts. It's still hinted at that there's something going on there enough to keep me somewhat intrigued, but I think I'm getting frustrated more than anything. 

I needed more story, more personality. And more… something. This was just so meh.

This was okay. 

Literally nothing happened, though, so it was a pretty laid-back and bland read. Waylynn goes to classes, eats lunch with the guys, and then they go to bed. Over and over again, pretty much until the end of the book. 

None of the characters feel like actual people. They're very generic, cliche cookie-cutter characters. The laid-back jock. The protective alpha, and the cute best friend. There wasn't even any real building of their relationship. They pretty much went from strangers to living together in one breath because “it just felt right”. 

I spent the whole book waiting for answers with her whole “I hear voices thing”. She's very obviously connected to these guys somehow, as she's been hearing them all her life, but that ball never dropped. It was hinted to a handful of times, but literally nothing else. 

There's nothing to this book. I kept waiting for more that never came, and I want answers. 

This was a quick one, haha. Extremely short, more of an extended epilogue.

We revisit Mara as a, now, medium. 

It was what it was. It was like… 10 pages long. It was a super quick haunting that was over before it started.

Still good though. 

Overall, this was a pretty okay ghost story. 

A little bit lackluster. I kept waiting for the shoe to drop and a big twist to happen, but it never did. This was really more about Mara dealing with her childhood trauma and her relationship with Neil than it was a ghost story. 

I could have used more history on all of the people who died in the house. The little bits and bobs that were dropped along the way really didn't cut it for me. 

The suspense was never really there; I was never on the edge of my seat. It didn't give me a spooky scary vibe at all. 

Overall, it was a good ghost story. I did enjoy it, even if it wasn't as much as I usually love Coates’ stories. 

I had the same issue with this book as I did with Blade Breaker. There's just so much filler. Why is so much of this book just fluff! 

I found it really hard to love any of the characters. They were all half decent, but I never felt like it went beyond that. I enjoyed the plot a lot. It was a great idea, and I truly just wish there was more of it. Not a lot happened in this series at all. There were the big bang moments (like the beginning of this book) and a huge lull (for almost the entire rest of this book) and then a smaller bang on our way out. It was extremely underwhelming. 

I also wish that we got to see more of what happened to Erida and Taristan instead of a fade to black. For so much build-up in this series, the end was beyond Lackluster. 

My rating is for the overall plot of this book because I did love it. And I liked the characters well enough, even if I didn't love any of them. 

This series is hard for me. I find myself really interested for little bursts, and then I get bored and zone out and stop caring again. 

I like all of the characters well enough. But I'm not invested, I'm not in love, and to be quite honest, they're all pretty cookie-cutter, bland, and boring characters. 

Nothing really happens in this book. It's extremely slow and extremely dense, considering nothing really happens in this book. I really hate when an author takes two to three really big events and makes the waiting in between the majority of the book.

 I'm bored. I don't care anymore. I like the plot, I want more plot and less blah blah. 

Side note though, I just need to mention how great Aveyard is at making you love the bad guys. Corayne? Boring. Erida? One of the only reasons I keep reading this series. 

I can't express how much I loved this book. I am terrified of the fact that it's a series as I have no clue how this one could be followed up at the same caliber. 

I won't lie, I was mighty confused for the first little bit of this book. I couldn't understand what was going on with the levels of ley or all of the levels of priests, or with all of the different locations, but I think the author did an amazing job at wearing it all together so it became so much clearer as the book went on. 

The magic system is fantastic. The levels of the ley, the marks (and the marked/unmarked) the void. The lucifers. I feel like this is one of those books I could gush about all day. 

This story goes through a great bug handful of different povs, some more prevalent than others, and some that just kind of pop up here and there for a little bit of insight. The chapters are a great length, and gave me the ability to get to know all of the characters (and love all of the characters, probably even those I'm not supposed to) without getting bored of anyone. 

All of the threads that are spun come together so beautifully. I couldn't put it down and stayed up way too late for 3 straight nights to get through it. 

Honorable mention to Malach and Spassov ♥︎

If you're willing to put in a little bit of effort into understanding this magic system, I can not recommend this book enough. 

I read this with my 9 year old daughter, and we both absolutely loved it. 

It was such a beautifully written and fun book. Brida was so headstrong, stubborn, and hell-bent on doing the right thing and saving the world. She was an amazing fmc, and honestly, had all of the characteristics I look for in my adult fantasy characters. 

I loved the magic system. Learning about the tiers of magic, and then the Queens twisted magic on top of that was so intriguing and really well done. This is also one of those books where you fall in love with the supporting characters almost more than you do the main characters. Super shoutput here to Bones, who was just so much fun.

The origin story of the three sisters and the original wind witch is to die for. Honestly, K and I haven't read a book this well done in so long, and we've never both fallen in love with the same book like this before. 

5 stars from both of us ♥︎

This book didn't quite live up to everything I was hoping it could be.

I'm assuming that the next one is going to blow up pretty quickly, as this book took its time letting us get to know all the characters and immerse ourselves in the world. I love how vivid everything is, and I LOVE all of the povs and the characters, so those are big bonuses for me. The length of the chapters was pretty decent, and I don't feel as though we bounced around from character to character too much. I've read some books with a handful of povs, but the chapters are so short that you never really get to know one person before moving on. That wasn't the case here, I felt as though I was able to really get to know each character. 

The book started off so focused around Corayne, and her want to become a pirate like her mother, that I really thought there was going to be a lot more pirates… or maybe pirating, but there was close to none, and I was a little let down by that. 

I want to see more of the assassin side of Sorossa, so I'm hoping that comes through in the next book. I also hope that Corayne grows into herself a bit more. I find her to be a little dull, and considering she's supposed to be this big savior, I had higher hopes for her. 

While I enjoyed the buildup of this world and the series, this book was slow. It lost me a few times, and I found it hard to stay completely focused on it. I'm really hoping we jump right into the heart of it in the next one. 

The same thing happened with this book as the other books in this series. I started off madly in love with the characters and their relationships, and I was SO invested. And then the book went on, and on, and nothing happened except the same arguments and the same fights, and I got bored. 

I was really excited about this one. After being a side character in 2 other books in this series, I was so ready for Adelina's story. I hated her. She was so awful, and she was so awful on purpose. I wanted to slap her so many times. Honestly, in Ruined, she had such great personal growth and grew up so much. But then went right back to square one for this book. It really didn't make sense to me.
 
Burns, though. He's an entirely different story. I love him. He's the most thoughtful and caring man, and he supports her through everything (even though she's terrible to him, constantly), and he just wants her to be unashamedly her. Ooph. Swoon after swoon with him. 

I even liked Giselle's little side story thrown in there with Percy. I feel like this series was left wide open for more books, so I'll just sit over here and cross my fingers for an Ingram (pretty sure that was his name, can't 100% remember) story. And maybe Giselle's story, too. There was a bunch of hinting at her past with no real answers.

I think this story either needed something to actually happen in the plot, or it needed to be shorter. I definitely felt like we were going in circles, and it went from a 4 or 5 star boom to a 3 star book for me because of that.