Okay first and foremost I know this isn't going to make any sense but was anybody else really bitter that they didn't go to the Cadets Ball?!?! Of everything that happened in this book I don't know why that is the thing that upset me! I don't know, maybe I just wanted something frivolous and fun to happen to these characters just once! Anyway I really enjoyed this, I was honestly really engaged with the school setting. Like we got to spend so little time at Odens Ford in the grand scheme of things but I was in love with it! I would have read three more books about them just going to school, because it was interesting. We got to learn so much about their world through them going to the school and it didn't feel like a useless info dump that was never going to get brought up again. I felt like I was learning things that I was going to care about. And also didn't feel like a travel book. Like they spend a good portion of the book traveling through the world, but it didn't feel like those novels where you felt like you were trudging through Page after page of useless travel that did nothing to the story. The people that you meet with along the way complete the story and are vividly engaging in a way that I'm not used to seeing. Nothing that the characters did felt like it was filler to make the book longer, everything felt like it was important.

Han having to juggle all of his commitments is so fun to watch because the man cannot just sit and mind his own business, he has to get involved but he hates it just as much as everyone else does. The boy is never not been stressed a day in his life and it shows! And can I just say how much I love Fire Dancer and how cute their friendship is! Like I love those two so freaking much! They are my comfort friendship, and I simply adore them! I find it particularly funny that in that one class they told each other nonsensical statements that they thought were completely ridiculous and never ever going to.... And then both of them ended up being 100% correct. I love that trope more than anything in the world, and it had me rolling!

By contrast the emotional turmoil that Raisa gets to go through throughout the entire book was simply Delicious! We do have a hard and fast gag put on that building love triangle, and I'm not going to lie it was a little sad to see the secondary love interest go, but at the end of the day I think we all know it was for the best! And I'm not just saying that because I already know what happens (I accidentally read the first part of the sequel series before reading this series) 

I want to talk about this series with someone but no one else I know has read this series and so I just get to sit here and suffer instead. Absolutely phenomenal world building! Oh I can't even handle it! The characters are so well written, all of the "side characters" are flushed out and feel important. They aren't just there to push the narrative forward they have their own things that they're doing. I just love it so much!

Listen, did it take me over a year to finish this book? Yes! (Because it was the book I read on my break at work and I wouldn't let myself bring it home to finish it I had to read it at work) that said it is absolutely phenomenal what the author has done to create this world! The two main characters are coming from vastly different worlds and so they view the world around them through vastly different lenses. So often characters from different worlds we'll just understand each other immediately but in this one there is genuine conflict and a difference of opinion that goes on.

If you were looking for a slow burn romance this series is for you. 

I'm talking, the main couple doesn't even meet until 2/3 through the book, and only interacts for maybe 20 pages. And then after that they both think that the other is dead

 

So I accidentally read half of the first book of the sequel series on accident because I didn't know that it was a sequel series. In doing so I know a lot of things that are going to happen in this series... I for the life of me cannot think of how they are going to make those things happen. It will be interesting to see how these things go and I can't wait to see how it happens!

I started reading the series over 5 years ago... And just kind of forgot that I hadn't read the last book. Which is funny given that this story was literally my entire personality forever! I was interested to see how the author was going to close out the series, given that I always felt that the other books in the series didn't come to a conclusion they just ended. It always felt as if we were in the middle of a scene and then the book was just done. That said I love the ending of this book so much! Maybe not the actual epilogue cuz I felt it was strange, but everyone's story lines is wrapped up in a way that feels satisfying. None of their stories actually end, they're still work that they have to do, but the story of the series is completed in a way that is extremely satisfying as a reader. Things that I had forgotten about from two or three books ago make total sense now, and everything had been building up to that big final moment everything mattered and everything came into place. It was so fun watching all of these changes happen and watching everyone grow into the people that they were meant to become. There were a lot of things that I couldn't have seen coming because they were incredibly random, but overall it was a very very good read and I am so happy that I stuck it out and finish this series! When that final confrontation happened I was just screaming at the characters! And I had my fist pumping the air when everything came to a head! So much happened all at once and it was glorious!

I've said it once and I'll say it again, if you are not listening to these books in their audiobook form you are doing yourself a massive disservice! The accents that the voice actors give these people makes their characters the whole much better! It is so fun to engage in this series and this world and it was simply a fantastic read!

This was everything that I wanted the sequel to be! With a cliffhanger we got in the last book I knew that there was a lot riding on the sequel and it exceeded every expectation. That said there were a lot of times that I was confused by the magic system. But from what I've realized in diving into the rest of this author's works is that the magic systems and her books are not meant to make sense. There's not actually a rhyme or a reason to them they simply exist. And if I'd known that from the beginning I probably would have had an easier time with it, cuz I kept forgetting that the main character even had magic, and didn't just have really good intuition.

That said this book will be my entire personality for the next like 3 months. Oh my goodness the family dynamic, the societal dynamic, that villain who was set up from the beginning but still left me so blindsided and absolutely the best way possible! All the steaks are real, the consequences of people's actions are real! I will on the edge of my seat the entire time. I listen to this as an audiobook and when I got to a couple of parts I literally had to stop my car and process what just happened so that I didn't end up in a wreck!

listen I am a simple woman. If there is a secret marriage that then leads to a "THATS MY WIFE!" Kind of seed that I am putty in the hands of this author! I am simply aghast!

There were a couple of times that we didn't get to see the execution of how they got from point A to point B we simply had to accept that they managed to do it. And there were a couple of scenes that I just couldn't understand what was happening due to the description of the spaces that they were in, and the introductions of places that were never discussed beforehand and never were referred to again outside of the one time they were needed. 

like the place that was filled with wagons full of corpses? What even was that?!?! Like they kill a man there and are like "wow! Aren't we lucky that only we know this place exist!!" Like WHAT?!?

 

So overall it was great! There were just enough little nitpicky things that I couldn't quite give it a five star. That said if she wrote more about these characters I would read it in a heartbeat!

This book was so much fun! It happens a lot when you have books that are given a pirate aesthetic that the fact that they're on a ship kind of almost gets forgotten. Like the day-to-day things that would affect them are just brush to the side for sake of moving the plot along, but in this it... There's a gritty realism without taking away from the fantastical element that makes this book so amazing.

I love the friendships in this book! I love the way that the relationship all work together, and the changes that the relationship to go through as time goes on.

I saw that big reveal moment coming literally the first 10 pages of the book. Like if anyone was surprised by that you clearly not had any introduction to basic tropes in young adult literature. That in no way took away from my enjoyment of the read. It was so interesting to see the way that the different Islands play off of each other, and it really was just so much fun!

I honestly cannot say enough good things about this book! It got me out of a 3-year reading slump! It's the first print book that I'd read in a very long time!

The characters are so fun! All of their conversations felt very realistic! They did things that surprised me in the best way, and the things that didn't surprise me were done so beautifully that I didn't even care that I guess the plot point! I actually was taking a young adult literature class at my University this year and I chose this book to be my focus. I gave him many presentation and told people what I think that it should be added on to their TBR basically. I think that this book is simply amazing! Everything from the cover, to the characters, to the story, everything about this book was amazing! I am so excited for the sequel... But I read in the synopsis about the sequel and I'm worried that there might end up being a 🤮 love triangle. So we'll see how we do with that!

Okay so I was gonna rate this book a 2, casue I had to TRUDGE to get myself to finish it. I'm sorry, but it was so boring. I LOVED bk1 I loved it so much so I was so sad that I just could not care less for this book. A lot of the events were predictable in the worst way. I don't mind guessing a plot twist, usually it means you set up realistic clues, but it got to the point that I was about ready to DNF casue I new how it was gonna go down 

I added an extra star and a half cause that ending wrecked me! I was crying my eyes out at 10:00 in the morning. Well done, well done. Absolutely heart shattering, exactly what I was looking for. So a 2/5 for most the book but a 5/5 ending! So it averages out to 3.5/5 total.

This was a really good read! There were a lot of times that it took me by surprise! It was well done, though there were times it that the charecters would remember back to events that happened before the novels beginning and will talk about them like the reader already knows what happens. And it will kinda tiptoe around some sensetive topics. Like with context clues you know what happens but it's like they were to scared (?) to just come right out and say

"The main character was assaulted." They got away unharmed! But still it clearly scared them

like if you are going to bring it up that much you kinda need to let us (the readers) know what's going on. That's not a mystery for us to solve. 

The romance was really cute! More than once I had to stop reading for a minute and grin like an idiot! A am a sucker for a good ole hidden identity love story!! And I loved the world building! They way things were shaped around different cultural hierarchies clashing against one another! It was done very well!

That being said... There were a number of times that, from my perspective, it threw in "buzzwords" about inclusivity without really doing anything about it. Like in one bit, one of the underground fighters is rolling their eyes at how a male fighter and a female fighter have been kinda "grouped" together and paired off due to "all that heteronormative crap." But we don't actually ever see a same-sex couple. We DO get canon homosexuals, but nothing beyond that. So I do hope that going into the second book we see more of that beyond dropping some vocab words.

also was anyone else confused in that last confrontation with Moolek? Where he says that the God of Earth had told him to blow up the volcano? Like I double checked and there ISNT a god of earth in this world. There is a GODDESS of earth, but the entire book any time they mentioned her it was with the notion that she is very gentle in nature. So that kinda threw me through a loop. Nothing like disregarding your own lore to shatter your suspension of disbelief. Hope that all gets cleared up in book two! See y'all in 2022!

Overall I really liked it! I mean I finished it in three days! Good and engaging story, interesting dynamics, and a villain I can't WAIT to see get what's coming for him!

I cannot say enough good things about this book!!! I loved this duology so much! The twists and the stakes always felt so real! The charecters were so flushed out! I ADORE a good found family! A love a slow burn romance! Its so so good!!!