I know a lot of people find this really poetic, and it can be in places, but the short, curt sentences just felt choppy and got on my nerves sometimes. Even with Lin-Manuel Miranda narrating it (he did a great job!). It definitely felt a bit pretentious, but I don't think that hurt it too much. Overall, I still liked it, even though it reminded me a bit of watching Dawson's Creek and going, "kids don't really talk like this".

I think if there had been a bit more time with all these characters -- more development into their backgrounds and a little less fast-paced, non-stop action -- that I might have enjoyed it a bit more. Multiple POVs might have helped a lot on this one. Nax could be kind of annoying a lot of the time and while I enjoy romance in my stories, the whole 'love triangle' thing was more of an annoyance than an addition to the characters and plot.

It broke my heart. Not in a "I loved this story" sort of way, but in a 'this is a little too heavy-handed' kind of way. A lot of people have mentioned Mary Sue and I can kinda see where they are coming from. I never really *disliked* any of the characters, per se, but by the end of the third book, I liked Helene and Harper more than anybody else. And it just felt like Tahir was literally shitting all over Helene by the end -- she couldn't have one good thing in her life remain and it was kind of messed up, especially when Laia and Elias got their 'happily ever after'.

I didn't hate it, but I think I agree with everyone else who says it was riddled with tropes and just didn't quite feel like a good ending.

I felt a little uncomfortable during some of this story. Gabe was truthfully not a great person and yeah, he comes around at the end, but there was a lot of emotional abuse he inflicted that made the happily ever after ending a bit disconcerting. Dylan and Gabe both need serious counseling and honestly, probably some healthy time apart.

I don't feel it as much as I did Shadow and Bone -- not sure why. It doesn't feel like it's own sequestered story like Six of Crows did and it makes it feel like it's kind of limping along rather than standing on its own legs. I would rather see a stand-alone 'big bad' rather than a return of the same one. Not sure how it will be handled in the second book, but I don't have high hopes for it.

I think it would have been better served with Lizabeta remaining the antagonist.

It took me 3 tries to get into reading these and I only did because the show is coming up and I wanted to understand both sides. It's almost a new universe as opposed to Shadow and Bone, but now that I've read King of Scars, I think that served it quite well.

My main issue is not liking some of the characters and when I don't like them and yet multiple people seem to be *in love* with them, it makes it even worse. Eventually I found myself enjoying a few characters and interactions, but overall it just wasn't quite for me. I think I like the fantasy aspect of things far more than the gang-politics that these two worked from.

All-in-all, I think Nina wound up being my favorite, though Jesper was also interesting to me.

This would've been a four star for me if it were not for Radu's consistent pining and whining about Mahmed. I do love both of the main characters, but for all of Radu's gained strength over the first book, it was extremely grating and saddening that he was such a slave to his obsession with Mahmed. I understand that some people can be like this, but it was practically all that his chapters went on about and it drove me bananas. I hope that the third book will be better in that regard.

I won't lie -- the beginning of this book is slow. It took me a few days to read the first half and then I breezed through the second half. I think now that the characters are established that the second book should be more enjoyable as a whole.