Reviewed by nitzan_schwarz on
Now, look, I have a lot of thoughts. None of them are very organized or well thought out, but when was the last time I wrote something I could claim was either, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The first thing I have to say is that this book is LONG. And for most people that's probably not an issue, but it kind of was to me. It's 824 pages and it FEELS it. I felt like I read two and a half books in the span of one. So many things happened, and it took maybe 500 pages for a single good thing to happen.
Which brings me to my next point... this book made me Anxious AF. And I don't mean it figuratively. My heart rate was off the charts, I bit my nails off and as I was not in the best mental place to begin with when I picked this up, this was not the best combination for me. I couldn't read it for long because it made me feel so BAD.
Those two points combined made me read this book over the course of 25 days instead of my usual day and a half to three days reading times. I even read a few other books in between just because I needed to mitigate the effect of this book.
So that part of the whole thing wasn't great. So let's talk about what WAS great.
First of all... I love Winter. I love that she is quite seriously mad. And that she wasn't miraculously cured by the end of the novel. Often times, characters aren't "allowed" to be truly crazy. My best guess is that authors fear their readers won't be able to connect with them or something. However, Meyer lets Winter be cray cray and she also makes it an integral part of her character and of what makes her loveable, and I absolutely loved that she does that!
Although I got to say--the Snow White parts of this felt kind of shoed in. But okay.
As for everyone else, I loved them as always. Cress and Thorne continue to be my Ship™, Iko is still fabulous, Scarlet and Wolf are the cutest, and Cinder and Kai continue to give monarchs a good name (and also hi hey hello they are really sweet together imo). And I quite like Jacin with Winter, even if I still feel like I'm probably saying his name wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This book was action packed from beginning to end, and as I said, it was a nerve wrecking two books and a half long read. Everything that could go wrong--did. Everything that could go okay--also went wrong. Every time I was happy about my characters sharing space, something tore it apart. Quite honestly I could do with a little less stress, thank you very much.
Honestly, I simply could not see how our heroes are going to win this one, even though **spoiler alert** they obviously do. This is not Game of Thrones, people! That being said, I do have one issue with how everything went down. Like, for how long this book is, I felt like Meyer didn't spend enough time convincing the Lunars to join Cinder. That is the crux of their strategy and so many things go wrong but the ONE thing that kind of goes right is that Cinder's video convinces people to revolt. Cinder's video, which pretty much said: "hi hey hello I'm your lost queen let's rebel!" Like, I feel like people who have been oppressed for YEARS--had family members killed and hurt, have been slaves and playthings--would not have risen to fight so quickly, to a girl with no proof of her identity. That's what bothers me. I get riling around your lost queen, I just don't get riling around a teenage girl who can't prove her identity ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To be real, I don't have too much to say about this one despite how long it is; it's a solid finale to a solid series. Great cast of characters, great casts of romances, great cast of personalities and nationalities (Chinese, French, Black, White, Androids, Humans, Half-Half, etc). Great writing and great action. Just all around great.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 30 June, 2018: Finished reading
- 30 June, 2018: Reviewed