I really wanted to love this series. The first book hooked me and had all the makings of a great fantasy series - FMC with lost memories, a forgotten lover, a villain who's not so villainous, court politics, a touch of magic. But as this series dragged on it just lost steam.
Honestly, Norah is the worst. She's sooooooo emotional and makes the stupidest fucking decisions because of it. Like, we stan a drama queen....but maybe not an actual, overly dramatic queen. Her obsession with Alexander is INFURIATING. She never shuts up about him!! For someone who lost all her memories, her devotion to him makes absolutely no sense. She's supposedly so in love with Mikail but is not faithful to him. Mikail should have dropped her ass 1000x over for how irrational she is, but this poor guy just accepts that he has to "make room" for Alexander in Norah's heart. NO, BRO.
Our MMCs are not that much better. We don't really know all that much about Mikail, if you think about it. He's just...angry, and then in love with Norah. And Alexander's entire personality is just "I'm in love with Norah, and I must do what's right for Mercia". This was fine in the first book, but by the end of book 3 neither MMC developed any further and that was frustrating.
Other things that straight up pissed me off ****SPOILERS****:
- Uh, Alexander just fucking dies? AND NORAH STILL WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT HIM.
- Norah never regains her memories? This was such a critical plot in book 1, but then they finally meet the Wild chicks and they're just like "sorry sis, they gone forever". WHAT????
- The magic system made no sense, nor was it really developed to make sense.
- The Lucien arc was like a dramatic soap opera.
Honestly, I would have preferred a whole story around Soren and Phillip. Why did we have to wait until book 3 to rush through their romance?? When you look at all 3 books collectively, their story was such a random MM plot that probably didn't need to be there, but I'm so glad it was because I found myself wanting to read their chapters instead of the rest of this.