btwnprintedpgs's Reviews (1.3k)

This whole series was just a roller coaster of emotion. Oh my goodness... My heart hurts so much and yet I'm still content and I'm so confused and torn... Amazing, simply amazing.

Significantly better than its predecessors, but there's still something about Maas' writing I don't like. But the plot of this series caught me, and the characters really came to life in this book. So in the end, the series was okay. Definitely not as amazing as I wanted it to be or heard it would be.

That being said, I leave this book with enough curiosity that I'll read the next one, even if I have to endure her equating the colour of blood to that of rubies over and over and over again...

This took a me a long time to review. It's not that it was a bad book - it was quite good in fact. I think it was because I didn't know what to do with it. At the end, I had so many questions that didn't have answers. Here I am, a year later, reflecting on it, and I still say that it's a pretty great book.

I did like Tessa though. I enjoyed accompanying her on her hunt for clues, even when her curiosity made my stomach clench in fear for her. In the end, I also ended up liking Callie, despite my initial annoyance with her character. She grows up, I think, a lot throughout the novel.

Admittedly, the pacing was a little slow. There was a lot of history of the characters and of the town itself, and a lot of "why me" thoughts. But I felt like the book as a whole was put together well. Nothing was revealed too quickly, and I liked that there were some dead ends. It helped make the story more intriguing and creepy.

I read this book when I was taking a criminal profiling class in uni and I found it fascinating to learn and read about this whole thing simultaneously. While I found that some things made sense, I felt that there were a couple things that were a bit of a stretch. In the end though, I was too surprised to really care much about the couple of things that didn't really click for me.

The end itself was quite the surprise for me, but at the same time, it left me wondering so many things. I get that there wouldn't be a second one, but maybe a little more added to the ending would have been eye opening, or it might have ruined it, I don't know.

The thing I love about Kara is that her books always surprise me. I really enjoyed her Prep School Confidential series, and I loved this books as well. I look forward to diving into her new book, Little Monsters, when it comes out in July!

Plot: 4.5/5
Characters: 4.5/5
World Building: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Pacing: 4/5
Overall: 4.5/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.78/5

eARC obtained via Delacorte Press via Random House Children's via NetGalley.

Cute story, and I loved the characters.

The fight was a little much - she kind of blew everything out of the water, but I understood where she was coming from I guess. But I mean, give the man a chance??

One thing that often bothers me about the books in this series of novels is that there's a lot of long confessions/speeches that are supposed to move me I think? But they don't. No one talks like that in my world, so it seems a little silly to me. Also, near the end, they always do this summary type thing that sounds like a narrative over a movie and I don't like it. It's suppose to wrap up the book nicely, but it loses my attention instead.

As a whole, I enjoyed it, but the writing is what loses a star for me.

Ha, didn't realize this was part of a series! I loved it though, the story had just the right amount of vengeance and romance.

4.5 stars -

didn't love the cheating aspect,

but that's probably my only issue with this heart-wrenching book.