Honestly, I liked Amberly in the original series. Now, I do not. Sometimes, less is better. It was much easier to feel sympathetic for her before all of this. While I still feel sorry for her, she is clearly brainwashed to an almost comical degree, it's obvious that she has zero agency or will of her own. 

Also, I cannot believe Cass thinks this is ROMANTIC. The Kind does nothing but be the biggest misogynistic, classist jerk imaginable, is even VIOLENT, and Amberly is sitting there wooing over him because she has a built-up idea of him from TV. 

Maybe this is a warning. Don't idolize people. 

Definitely one of the ones that start making me think less is more with this series. Some things aren't worth it for love. This series does best when it's just a romcom romance competition. It falls flat as soon as it starts to be anything more, have political issues, etc. It's so underdeveloped. It had potential, but it was clearly not within Cass's abilities or will to write, let alone write well. 

Why is this more compelling than America's perspective? While I loved The Selection, the other two books were disappointing. This makes me think there could have been more intrigue and more info about the rebellion and the political systems. However, the other novellas have shown me that this series is at its best when it's the Selection and fun romance, not a revolutionary dystopia. 

I did not enjoy this at all. I'm so glad I got this out from the library and never bought it. I remembered a bit too late that I had read some of Donnelly's books before and hated them. The first thing that irks me are creatures/things having limbs that they don't and doing actions that they can't physically do (like mermaids "running" in her other series). You'd think someone would catch it and have her change it. It would be so much better for immersion, and I think it's so creative and fun when authors come up with untraditional ways of movement for their non-human characters. Why does the candlestick have hands!?! Come one, have him wave his candles around, have his flames express his emotion. There are so many things you can do with this and she chooses the most boring and stupidest option. 

In addition, this entire book is unnecessary. You know how it will end, so having this plot was ridiculous, there was no suspense. All the suspense was weighted in the plot, when there could have been emotional conflicts, interpersonal, etc. There are a myriad of options here and again we went with the most basic one that did a disservice to the book and movie. 

While this wasn't my first thought while reading the book, but when I finished it, I was thinking a lot about the Nephilim YA craze and how different every single one was when it came to the interpretation of angels and part angels. I think this has a lot to do with how dominate the catholic religion is and the way we culturally don't view stories like Noah's ark the same way we view Greek myths. Despite being a retelling of myth, it does not read that way, it reads more like a vampire or fae story because nephilim are on that level, not the level of Greek or ran demigod. This comparison gre especially given how many characters are part angel in this book. 

On to something more to do with the actual book. 

Honestly I found it perfectly mid. Didn't like or dislike the writing, had no strong feelings either way towards the characters, which is probably a plus since I was loathing them the way I do in similar books.

I found the cliff hanger was good, and I do plan on continuing the series. 

It's a very fast read given the large spaces between text and the large margins on the book, artificially inflating the page count. However, the book was mid I never felt very compelled to pick it up once I put it down, even if I felt like I was flying through it when I did remember to pick it up.

Not really a fan of how this ended. Loved the writing, but not the plotting. I have so many unanswered questions and a lot of things about the world don't make much sense to begin with, and it got worse here. Not sure what I was expecting though. I can say the fighting especially was written poorly and it took a lot of enjoyment away from the ending of the book. 

It's been years since I read the first book and I think about it often enough that I finally decided just to get the rest of the series out from the library and finish it. Not particularly amazing in any degree. I have the same sentiments as the first book: I think the world and political and magic systems need more development, even the development we got here did not help that much. I still question a lot of the characters' actions because I feel like I don't 100% know what is going on/motives. 

It's not poorly written, and if the subject matter won't so dark this could easily be a guilty pleasure the Kiera Kass's The Selection. I would still recommend this to Selection fans who wanted a stronger rebellion plot, as while still underdeveloped, the main character has a lot more to do with the rebellion and political change. 

The cliffhanger on this was 10/10. You knew it was coming, but it still hit hard when it was confirmed that's what actually happened. Ewing is a talented author, I'm just not sure the plot/concept of this book was right, to begin with. Will be finishing this series and I am interested in checking out her other work. 

This was such a cozy little fable. Would have LOVED this when I was younger. Unfortunately, I didn't believe I  reading any middle grade that wasn't Warriors and it looks like I was missing out a ton of great books. This was imotional, intelligent in its retelling, and amazingly atmospheric. Adore adore adore!!!! Would totally share this with any middle grade readers in my life, it's so magical. Perfect for fans of the original Snow Queen or Narnia. 

The story isn't bad, but I feel like the execution was mid. While based on actual events, the plot did feel a bit like a Kate Morton book, minus the excellent writing and mystery set-up. So while we had someone trying to uncover the secrets of their family tree, the ending was never really a mystery, though that would have been hard to do because this is based on real events. However, because of that, the book did drag, especially around the middle, and relies on the strategy of it all to keep you turning the pages to try and see what happier spin the ending could have. 

Maybe I'm not at the right place yet to appreciate this, but it seems so banal. First of all this book did not focus a lot on Morrie's teachings or ideas, I think I would have liked it a lot more if it had just been transcripts of the conversations because he seems like a lovely person. On the other hand, Albom seemed to have this absolute disdain for everyone who he didn't know directly, despite being told every Tuesday how important love is for your life. I listened to some of the audiobook narrated by him too, thank o my library and it just doubled down on this feeling that he absolutely hates strangers. There was some vitriol every time he mentioned a group of people that made this book unenjoyable.