Found my old copy and deiceded to read it. I liked it a lot more now than I did in school, and, in retrospect, I don't think my teacher understood it as we took the book very literally and thought it was stupid because of that. Now I can see the points it was trying to make and while I don't agree with all of them, nor the pretentious tone of "if you don't understand/agree with this you're the problem" I did enjoy this a lot more now upon rereading it.

3.5

I have quite a few thoughts. I'll start with the pictures. It was fun in the first book, but definitely around the third one, it started to feel like it was weighing the books down. Around page 400, there was this whole ordeal with Frankie that just seems shoved in there to show off some cool pictures. While it did move the plot forward (much a credit to Riggs's talent as a writer) the scenes themselves felt very out of tone and juvenile. I plainly did not enjoy them. Most scenes heavily packed with pictures felt forced in some way like they were written to include them whereas in the first few books they felt like the pictures inspired the work.

My second critique of the pictures is they are 100% being used to mark up the prices of these books. They're printed on full-colour pages and everything from the page number to the scene divisors is coloured to match them. I'm very annoyed with YA books being more like collector's items than books because then they are priced ridiculously high. This one wasn't insane (30cad plus taxes) but less-mainstream authors' books sell for around 23.

That being said, this was super fun to read. I didn't have a lot of reading time but whoever I picked it up I flew through it. This book seems very dense when you hold it (I've seen longer hardbacks printed in thinner paper weighing less) and can feel very intimidating but the writing flows so well I made it through 100 pages and barely even noticed. The pacing was good, but it starts to feel looong around the 350-page mark.

The expansion of the world feels natural and I'm very glad it's not rehashing the same things we saw in the first arc of the series. I have a feeling it will get better and I'm excited to read the next one.

I hope this is not going the prophecy route...

Definitely has some of the best world-building I've ever seen.

I feel like the ending was not what I felt like I was promised from the first book. I don't know what I was expecting, but this felt overhyped and not what I wanted. The first book was an interesting thought experiment, but this one was not. I didn't like how the world was expanding the second book (though its development was so good) and I'm less thrilled with how it ended.

2.5

These stories really did not do it for me. I remember getting very disillusioned with the last books in the franchise when I realized I had to read the novellas to understand a couple of the characters and I do carry a grudge for that, especially because all of Paige's other ebooks serves to complement the series they are from. I still much prefer the two companion books to [b:Stealing Snow|28260524|Stealing Snow (Stealing Snow, #1)|Danielle Paige|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453999507l/28260524._SY75_.jpg|44880721] than to this series. These three were the weakest links, as for the most part they did not bring anything new or interesting to the story. Also, it has been a very long time since I read the books and these ebooks are basically like missing chapter segments from the books, not a companion.

I'm really in love with this book. It was great story-wise and kept me guessing. I really enjoyed how respectful it was of the original people and how it handled everything.