The longest book - but possibly the worst one? JFC. 2 stars, and I'm being nice.
*SPOILERS AND MATURE CONTENT*
PROS
- First moment where im finally like ‘okay gagged!’ Is pg 182 where Sabine chooses Jacqueline to fight Camila to the DEATH in her place - Jacqueline has to fight her ex girlfriend??? To the death??? When they're still in love.
- Jacqueline and Camila end up together.
- Sabine, just as a character, they don't deserve you legend.
CONS
- I’m putting this one at the top because it’s maybe the worst - how anticlimactic the Rites have been. You’re telling me that the first Rite included snakes, the second Rite was literal psychological torture, but the third one was just to go to a party with a mask on? Are you for real? Four books spent hyping up the ‘The Rites’ and their importance, their dangerous nature in being the ultimate test of a relationship etc, constantly warning Thea that there were more to come, and then in the final 100 pages of the book the third Rite is literally just a big extravagant party they attend in special masks that reveal their 'true form' (but nothing happens as a consequence) and give them another location to fuck. The Third Rite was essentially used as a convenient plot device to have all the characters in the same location for the big boss battle fight that happens.
- Thea I swear to god you cannot be this stupid - you’re desperate a wear jeans to your first time publicly ascending the throne???? And then you’re shocked when Aurelia is like 🤠 erm maybe not
- there is literally no one less suited to be queen what do you mean she just threw away a massive rule within 24 hours of being queen and caused a literal RIOT in the court after Julian had made a massive display to get them on her side that WOULD have worked too oh my goodness her stupidity knows no bounds! How dare you 🤦🏻♀️ honestly would not have been disappointed if someone had just assassinated her for that on the spot (for context there are three queens and they don’t allow men to rule by their side bc they would demand to be king and literally unravel the matriarchy but she’s like uwu Julian is my equal come sit on the throne to make a massive political statement)
- Also this whole insistence on him being your equal is so stupid? Sure you can have mutual respect for each other between yourselves but he doesn’t HAVE to be your political equal, especially not for the sake of disrupting an entire ancient system of people that ALREADY want to kill you. The fact that she says “I’d expected the crowd to protect me” - WHY WOULD THEY???
- I'm actually starting to believe that Julian is insanely in love w her bc she’s a siren and he has no choice.
- Speaking of being a siren, there is literally zero consequence from the fact that in book 3 Willem tried to start her transformation to a succubus; he just made her drink blood for a bit and it was like oh okay well it didn't work.
- Julian denies the accusation that Thea is ‘too precious to get her hands bloody’ but let’s be real she hasn’t fought anyone in the whole series without Julian intervening or her using magic.
- Calling it now at page 220 the bad queen is gonna be Mariana (reveal: it was in fact Mariana. We know there's one good queen and one bad queen - shock horror! It was the "nice" queen that turned out to be bad, rather than the one that seemed really cold)
- I swear they did not just randomly run off to Cuba in the middle of a brewing war whilst half the population has a bounty on her head… what the actual fuck
- Pg 256 - she’s getting rlly pissed at him for trying to help her down the sand dune, she literally falls and breaks her ankle and is still mad at him? He was right?
- They shag like six times a day, he tells her he thinks she’s pregnant and she’s like ‘nope not possible’ - it’s very possible???
- Okay. Page 294. It has finally clicked for me: the essence of this entire series. You know that one scene in game of thrones where the woman says “you want a nice girl but you need the bad pussy”, and the entire fandom has agreed it’s possibly the worst line in the entire show?? THAT is the true essence of this series. I have finally perfectly placed it. I read the line “just wondering if it’s normal to be this turned on by you acting like a badass daddy” and I knew.
- just saying, at the midnight masquerade thing for the Third Rite when everyone was transforming into their animal ‘true selves’ (basically a choppy version of spirit animals), I said out loud “I bet she’s going to be a phoenix, cringe”. Lo and behold, she was indeed a phoenix. I get it, but it’s soooo on the nose the whole ‘rising from the ashes thing’ - not to mention done to death.
- Julian intends to ‘sacrifice himself’ on page 385 but it doesn’t serve its purpose as this massive chivalrous thing because if he dies she dies (and their baby) bc of the sharing a soul thing - Julian would not do this after spending four books protecting her life
- THE DEATH-GOD THING. Omg. So basically halfway through the book it's randomly revealed that there's a monster (the death-god) going around and killing vampires, which just shows up at the Third Rite - basically just a convenient plot device for Thea to use her powers and prove that she's learnt how to harness her magic. There isn't even a back-and-forth combat with it, it just shows up and she opens a hole in the ground with magic and it's gone. The existence of this 'monster' should have been woven in legend or rumours right from the first or second book at least, this was the most random thing to appear with zero build-up or plot relevance whatsoever, just convenience.
- Willem being in the room right there after she kills the 'monster' to deal with again conveniently
- She’s unconscious for a week and conveniently wakes up a day before the wedding. +1 sin.
- Her mum who apparently knows abt everything and hates the vampire world just sits back whilst all this goes on? You spent 20 years protecting her, hiding her and lying to her just to be like oh well she’s run off with a vampire and is a queen of magic better leave her to it so she can get assassinated??
- In a world where the norm is a matriarchy and tradition is for the husband to take the wife’s last name… her ultimate act of defiance is to take his last name instead? Even in fantasy fiction we can’t escape the patriarchy of our world 🤩 well done Thea for reinstating it - considering you spend the whole book preaching about being equals you think you’d insist on a double barrel.
- Her human friends from the first book are literally just forgotten and never mentioned - they're not even at the wedding? She spends the first book super angsty over leaving her human friends and her old life behind, her literal best friends/roommates that apparently mean so much again and they're never seen or mentioned again after the graduation party.
- after spending the final book building up this romance between Lysander and Aurelia, we literally don't even get a final scene of them together. Especially when the thrones have been disbanded which means that Aurelia is no longer bound to her purity vow that stopped them being together - we literally could have had a short chapter where they realise they can be together now.
- this book could have been 100 pages shorter if they stopped shagging for one goddamn second oh my goodness. It was the worst in this book idc, it got so repetitive it wasn't even exciting anymore - if you're that desperate to write it, give us a Jacqueline/Camila sex scene? Or Lysander and Aurelia? I am SO BORED of Julian and Thea.
- Hadrian and laurel suddenly being at the wedding but we never get the answer we’ve been asking for multiple books - where tf were they??? Again just for the sake of a convenient ending, one of the book’s massive build-up moments is reduced to a few simple sentences - ah right they were at a faraway vampire private school that’s fine then.
- You’re telling me a big fat vampire wedding is somehow exactly the same as a white wedding in the human world? There are so many better cultures to take wedding customs from, and I feel like extravagant vampires would love that - even if we use the excuse that the Rousseaux family are Italian/French, where were those customs? and regardless, Sabine and Jacqueline planned this wedding and it wasn’t even a massive vampire event??? You're telling me vampires have no blood rituals or other vampire traditions at their weddings??? Again the wedding was just a stage for the (second) boss battle that then happens.
- the author refers to people as "males" and "females" throughout to assert that vampires arent humans bc she clearly doesnt want to use "man/woman", but it reads so badly. "I'm not the male I was/the female approaches me/the males over there" it just reads weird imo. Just say 'the vampire' or 'the male vampire' or something; however, I don't think referring to them as 'man/woman' would have made the reader suddenly think they're mortal.
- across 4 books there is ZERO comment from thea about her shock and experience going from the patriarchy of the real world into this society where women are respected?? if any regular human girl suddenly entered a matriarchy that would literally change your entire life how is there zero commentary about how odd and strange it is to be respected as a woman and to have all your societal norms shifted in the space of a few months.
- “And that was why the throne had chosen me. Because I didn’t want it.” Girl. You will never be Jon Snow.
on the series as a whole, I feel like this went in such an odd direction? in SUCH a short space of time - in the first book we have this human x vampire forbidden romance and we establish that they have to pass The Rites to get approval, okay cool, but then it turns into this entire rogue story about the fate of magic/three queens and in fact Thea was always destined to ascend the throne and the Rites are barely an afterthought.
This is a lesson in not trusting a pretty cover. But at least it will look nice on my shelf, I guess.