“How to salvage a dream, when the dreamer himself had been destroyed?”
This is a tough book to rate because I had such varying experiences within one book.
It took me 8 slow days to get through the first half and I was almost tempted to dnf. The first half is well-written, but it's slow-paced, predictable, repetitive and uninteresting. If I had to rate The Nemesis on the first half alone, it would be a two star rating.
I'm glad that I powered through, because the second half is epic, amazing and five star worthy. After an extremely important plot reveal, where Tyrus tells Nemesis that he's pretending to be a villain and engineered everything to inspire a revolution against him, the plot picks up and I started appreciating the characters. It's like everything that I loved in The Diabolic came back as better versions in the last half of The Nemesis. I think I even prefer the second half of The Nemesis over The Diabolic .
In both halves of The Nemesis, Kincaid is not afraid to put her characters through the most. There's risks and severe consequences for every character and some events seemed so hopeless that I had no idea how the characters would get out of the situation.
While I didn't care about the characters in the first half, I started loving them again in the second half. Nemesis goes from being a character who makes really silly decisions to one that I remember liking in the first book and she's such a badass. Tyrus might be the villain, but in the second half, his character arc made sense and he's such a complex and twisty character. I also like the sibling bond between Nemesis and Anguish.
One thing that The Nemesis achieved where the previous books had failed is making me believe in Nemesis, Tyrus and their relationship. Nemesis and Tyrus have a messy, twisty and complex relationship and while they're meant for each other, I always felt a little iffy because of the deception, manipulation and betrayal. However, I ended up loving their relationship in The Nemesis.
My reading journey for this series is full of highs and lows. I'm satisfied with how this series ended, but I wish I could have completely fallen in love with it.