Reviewed by Ashley on
There were three things that killed it for me:
1) Cat is pregnant and keeps referring to her unborn child as Little Bean. This term just grated on me. She's always "checking on Little Bean" and people are asking her, "is Little Bean okay?" I got to the point where I was ready to throw something if I heard "Little Bean" one more time.
2) Cat's insecurities drove me nuts. She keeps doubting her abilities and the lack of confidence causes her magic to waver. But there were so many times when I thought she'd finally conquered those insecurities, only to see her fall apart again. There were literally like 3 or 4 times where Cat thinks, "I finally understand my magic now! This is the answer! It all makes sense!" And I'd sigh with relief that her fumbling around is finally over... then two chapters later her magic gets snuffed out again and we were right back where we started. In fact, someone in the book actually commented on this and it was so accurate: "Repress. Explode. Repress. Explode. On endless repeat." That's exactly what happened.
3) The ending felt anti-climactic. Cat confronts her mom and given how horrible and evil her mom was, I expected her to cling on until the bitter end. I thought there was no way she wouldn't go out fighting. But instead, her mom does a complete 180.
"I envy your choices. Now, when it's too late, I wish I could have made them myself."
"I've taken from you. So much. I understand that now."
In the span of two pages, her mom went from holding Cat's friend's ransom to the above quotes?? What villain does a 180 that quickly??
I didn't hate the book... I still quite enjoyed parts of it and I loved seeing more of the gods. But the Kingmaker Chronicles was one of my all-time favourite series up until now and I'm pretty devastated that I didn't love the final book. I think I was hoping for a lot less fumbling in the dark with confidence issues, and more dominating badass.
Also, I kind of can't believe this book didn't have an epilogue. After all that horrible Little Bean stuff we couldn't at least see the kid born?
Reading updates
- 3 January, 2018: Started reading
- 6 January, 2018: Finished reading
- 6 January, 2018: Reviewed