I absolutely loved Storm from the East. It did an amazing job of building on the romance and plot of the first book. The stakes felt higher, more places and characters (all interesting) were introduced, and the character arcs really felt well developed. I think the novel does good with expanding on the moral questions and challenges of war introduced in the first book and presents very unique and complex characters. I think this was an amazing middle book - it felt like it had a real purpose and arc to it, while still building to something more. Also, I'm just so invested in all of the characters. There isn't a single character I don't want to have more scenes with, and there's so many mysteries to each of them that I want to find out.

4.5 ⭐️

I...did not like this book. At all. I am just not at the point in my life anymore where I can I stand seeing every character referred to as a “male” or “female” on every single page nor do I want to read “he roared as he came” ever again in my life. Also, I haven’t read the original series since high school, so maybe if I re-read now I would see the red flags, but this book reallllyyy made me hate Rhys and Feyre’s relationship, and just Rhys in general...but I also read all 700 pages, so make of that what you will. Nesta is one of the most interesting characters in this series and this book did her so dirty — the way depression & trauma were handled in this book was, uh, not good, and this is in nooo way the feminist literature it wants to be. Unless you’re talking about white feminism. I could unpack so many more things I disliked, but I don’t wish to waste more of my time with this book, so, would not recommend???