3.5/5
Okay so I’m all for this series, honestly. It’s a good wind-down kind of read for me, lowkey guilty pleasure and it still has a storyline that’s interesting. Unfortunately this story by itself wasn’t up to the same standard as the others for me; sure it had good scenes but overall I felt it was a bit backwards and paced oddly.
So we finally got to the main storyline of the series again, with the thing in the Rift, after two books of literally no mention of it at all, which I think is going to get really good from the next book onwards. (Bugs as big as cats? If that isn’t the stupid Rift bugs, I’m blue.)
I was right about the babies for the most part, they help the madness but didn’t think it was going to help with the thing in the Rift. I’m kinda eh about the fact that the babies have become the solution so now all the women have to go through having babies to save the world? And we still get no detail about birth, like are there complications at some point? (Yes I know the point of the fires is to make them strong enough to have half-drakoni children but still, there’s gotta be something??)
Rachel was an okay character. I get the author wanted to explore like for a person with a disability in the apocalypse but the number of times that it came up in certain parts was either too much (rendering it unnecessary to mention) or not mentioned much at all (therefore leaving me to question how things actually worked in the scene) I dunno I felt Rachel paled in comparison to the other main characters we’ve had so far. Visiting Dakh and Sasha was great but that whole scene served to say that she wasn’t ready and would be waiting (which Jurik was fine with) but then as soon as they’re alone, it’s pants off and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am-mated-forever and she changed her tune?? I don’t know about you but it was a weird pace for me (and most of these other books have been pretty much the same in the sense that there’s a moment of complete shift; which wasn’t really believable in this one.)
I’m glad Jurik and Vaal got a reunion, though it was from a third person point of view (I don’t think we really got to see what they both remembered about each other but it was adorable to see that they remembered each other.) I was surprised that Gwen and Vaal are still living in Fort Dallas, and not in their own place and coming into Fort Dallas when needed, especially considering the baby now. Does Azar know that the babies are the key? Because to me the babies seem like they could be more leverage to hold over the other drakoni.
I can’t wait for Jenny’s book though; like, breaking a drakoni free of Azar inside a fort? Now that’s gonna be interesting!
Was kinda annoyed Azar wasn’t killed at this point. Like, I get that he’s the one controlling the drakoni around the fort now but the authors note at the start of this book said that an abuser would get what he deserved (which I know was Brady or whatever but ugh get Azar out of there, or at least give me a short book/explanation on how Melani (Malenj? I forget how to spell her name) is still with him? Honestly still not seeing it??
I don’t know when the next instalment of this series is out but I think I’m going to be glad to take a break from this series for now.