This was such a great conclusion to the series. The villain is great. There's so much action. We get to spend the book with all of our favorite Fey that we've collected along the series. This was absolutely the best book of the 5. 

My daughter and I sat down and read it in one go, even stayed up past bedtime because we couldn't put it down. 

There were a couple complaints from the little though. She really didn't love the baby dragons getting chomped (because they're still cute little babies). 

She does, however, love Mallory so I think it was pretty easy for her to get past the bits she didn't like because “Malloy is SO awesome”. 

We both really enjoyed this series. We blew through it in a week, so we're a little sad that there wasn't more of it to enjoy. 

There wasn't much about this book that I liked. Even that might be a stretch. There wasn't anything about this book that I liked. 

The first three quarters were dreadfully boring, just getting little tiny snippets into each “player”s lives. Not enough for you to create a bond with anyone, not enough for you to get invested, but just enough to move the story along, albeit extremely slowly. 

That game makes no sense for the majority of the book, and by the time any of it is explained in a way that I might be slightly interested, the bomb is dropped and we learn everything - too much at once if I'm being honest. 

It went from boring and depressing (I hate when kids are kidnapped) to even more depressing and making me feel greasy and gross. 

I didn't like this book. The game made no sense. The reveal wasn't well done. There was no real closure or an explanation of what happened to the characters after, which was almost as bad as being left in the dark for 90% of this book.

I'm sad to do it but I have to. 

2 stars. 

Too much of this book was spent trekking through the jungle. It was a repeat of book 8 when we spent the whole book trekking through the desert. 

When we weren't cutting our way through the desert or walking endlessly in the mirror realm, we were going through a Fabian crisis. I was so tired of reading about how Kaylia needed to be devoted to this dead guy. Honestly a third of the way through this book it was already getting repetitive and then it just went on and on and on. 

I love this series, so I really hate dropping my rating this low for this book, but I just don't see how I could rate it any higher, in good faith. Brokk and Kaylia's relationship is cute, but feels very reminiscent of Orin and Sahira’s. Nothing about this book felt fresh, or new. It felt like a rip off of book 8 almost entirely. 

I'm absolutely going to finish the series, as other than this book I have really loved all of the books. 

I'm enjoying this series more and more as it continues. I love the dynamics of the siblings' relationships and the way that they talk to each other. I find the three of our main characters to be so realistic and fun, and I love following their story. 

This book was full of action and Fey trickery, and was everything I wanted it to be.We finally meet our big bad guy at the end of this book, so I'm really excited to see where the last installment will take us! 

My 8 year old is loving this series, really loves Mallory and probably wants to take up fencing now. 

I enjoyed the storyline behind this one a lot more than I did Breaking Time. The Fae are always characters that I can get behind, and I really enjoyed how this book incorporated that into the time travel that we've already been experiencing. 

I will say that while I enjoyed the story a lot more than the previous, the characters still bothered me a lot. There's no chemistry between our two main characters. Considering these two are supposed to be madly in love, I get no sparks from them and actually find their relationship pretty bland and boring. Thrown together because that's what you're supposed to do in a YA novel. I thought there was more to Klara and Tom's relationship than there was with Callum. Considering how his storyline panned out. That's saying something. 

The way that Klara is written feels extremely immature to me, especially because she's this super special girl who's pretty much been chosen to save the world. Some of the things she says made me cringe. Hard. Not even getting started on how unrealistic Callums entire character was. 

I enjoyed this more than the first. But I still didn't really find it enjoyable.  

This book fell a little flat for me. 

It was really slow paced with very little content. Those two things together make for a boring book that I struggled to get through. 

There's zero chemistry between the two main characters, they're just stuck together trying to take down the bad guy, and all of a sudden, they're in love. The opposite of swoon happened here. 

The plot was convoluted and messy. Honestly I spent a lot of this book wondering where we were even headed with the storyline, but conveniently ¾ of the way through a goddess showed up and broke everything down point by point for me so I could finally understand what was going on. 

I felt nothing. I wasn't invested in any of the characters or in the story or in the outcome of their “battle”. When action scenes did pop up, they were over just as they started with Klara conveniently happening upon some untapped powers she didn't know she had (every time) and saving the day (every time). 

There really weren't any redeeming points to this book, other than it held my interest enough to finish it, and I've read many worse books. 

I could not connect with this book no matter how much I tried. I usually really enjoy Hades and Persephone retellings. I love seeing Persephone come into her role as the Queen of the Underworld. I love watching her fall in love with Hades. But this book didn't check those boxes for me. 

Kore was such a hollow character. I never felt anything from her. Her anger at being kidnapped wasn't there. Her frustration at being stuck in the underworld was non-existent. She kept begging to go home, but I felt no emotion behind any of her words. I also couldn't tell you when they started falling in love. She had zero time for Hades and continuously sent him away. Then, all of a sudden, she's telling him she loves him. 

Hades' character was just as bad. I didn't see the point to any of his pov chapters as it never seemed to add anything to the story. Other than to remind us every now and then that he loves Kore, and that's why he kidnapped her. Insert eye roll here. 

There's zero action in this book. Nothing happens. This Hades and Persephone “falling in love”. But without any real emotion or story line. 

This series was so incredibly repetitive. Pretty much every single fmc followed the exact cookie cutter personality and history. Had secret powers and a fae parentage they didn't know about. The same reluctance to love their fated mate. The same battles that somehow ended in one single page. By the time I hit book 4 of this series, I could already tell you pretty much page by page what was going to happen. 

This story was filled with way too many conveniently added plot points that were never previously mentioned or hinted at in the entire series. All of a sudden, two characters just “found” a spell that could take down the big bad. We never searched for it. Never knew one existed. It just all of a sudden popped up. Same thing with big bad suddenly having a daughter that could very easily (in half a page) destroy her. 

This story didn't flow. It felt like I was being told the story after the fact by someone whose memory sucks and they keep forgetting things only to be like “oh and this happened too!” 

I don't have anything positive to add. So. I'm just going to leave it there. 

I'm glad to see that this series is developing and going deeper into the world of the Fey. I didn't start off loving these books, but I'm truly having a wonderful time now. 

My daughter and I are reading pretty much the entire book when we sit down for our pre bedtime story, so we are moving through this series pretty quickly. 

My daughter loves Jared. She thinks he's awesome and wants to be like Mallory when she's older, which is fun. She also appreciates that this book made me say “crap” to her, on purpose more than once, haha.

I'm entirely invested in finding out what happened to Great Uncle Arthur, and I love the addition of the Elves. 

I still don't think these books needed to be split. I'm sure I would have enjoyed this more as one large book, but I understand that that might be overwhelming for the age range of kids these books are aimed towards.

09/04/2021 ☆☆☆☆☆
04/27/2024 ☆☆☆☆☆

This book hit exactly the same way the second time. 

I don't know how to articulate all of my feelings for this book. I gave it 5 stars, I'll probably always give it 5 stars. It's the atmosphere surrounding Addie that I can't get enough of. 
 
My entire universe became Addie LaRue while I was reading this book. The world around me transformed, and I was sucked entirely into this book, heart, and soul.

There are parts of this book that give me goosebumps, and I felt like I had to stop for a moment just to savor the little pieces I was getting.

I have to keep this short because every time I start to delve into the bits of this book that made me cry or laugh or made my heart absolutely melt, I can't stop. I feel like it's in bad taste to just ramble on and on about how much you love a book, so I'll just state it plainly. 

This book hit my heart from every angle. It's just as great the second time as it was the first, and I love it.