The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Discuss the whole book. It may be helpful to start your post with something like Spoilers up to Chapter XX so people can jump in the thread before finishing the book and/or share thoughts as they read rather than having to try to remember everything at the end.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling things for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss events from later sections/books. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

That's about as fast as I've read a book in the last 2 years :)

I’m sad for Nona. She lost her pet demon. I mean, he was a murdering bastard of a demon, but he kind of grew on Nona.

Do you think when her demon went into the ice tribe lady he was actively trying to help Nona by making her thrash about?

Also, in the epilogue, when there was a red glint in Nona’s black eyes, do you think the demon had come back?

Sorry, I listened to the audiobook and I’ve already forgotten a bunch of names.

I liked the book, but not as much as the first one. I felt like the noble girl who got her in trouble was too much of a trope for one thing.

Also, I kind of got annoyed at the devil as well. That may just be because of the voice the narrator chose to use however. The constant goading got tiring.

I still really enjoyed the book overall though. I feel really bad about Dara. She was a cool character, especially since she started at the typical bully.

The future scenes kind of took some of the suspene out for me. I felt like neither Nona or Aria could die because we knew they'd go on to be Sister Cage/Thorn later.

Interesting point about the red glint. I must have missed that.

It's looking like Regal may be a love interest for Nona in the final book?

Regal might die though. He's not around in the flash forwards. Mark has a bad habit of killing off good supporting characters.

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if that happens.

Working my way through it. One of my only real complaints so far is with the "trial" in chapter 5... so they bring Nona in because she choked Jolene and inflicted "crippling injuries" on her. Then, when it's clearly shown that the crippling injuries were faked in an attempt to get Nona thrown out, they dismiss the case and tell the girls to run along.

I get that this is to show that things are still going to be hard for Nona and Abbess Glass and that there are elements in the convent who are openly antagonistic toward them, setting us up with a general feeling of who the good, bad, and stupid ones are... but no-one even attempted to say, "Wait a minute, this girl just tried to manipulate us into essentially killing one of her classmates and we almost did it. Maybe we should punish her in some way, if only to reinforce in all of the other assassins/spies we're training that a getting caught has consequences?" Not even the nuns who jumped to Nona's defense?

Nona doesn't think anything of it, because she's used to being a main character and therefore persecuted, but the adults are basically condoning attempts on Nona's life. They even said during the hearing that turning her out was tantamount to killing her.

It just goes a little beyond the situation being skewed against the protagonist. Diabolus ex machina, maybe?

I found Jolene as an antagonist to be too thin. I honestly didn't think too much about the adults in the situation at the time. You make a good point though.

Also, that last line. The world is on fire! The focus must have been turned up, and now smoke is coming from the horizon.

Oh good point about the last line - I hadn't even thought about that. Now that we know the focus can be weaponized, that seems really plausible.

I swear I had commented on this thread when I finished the book - grrr....I guess I only did that in my mind as I was driving back and forth to school - it's the last month of the semester and it has been insane.

I agree about the adults not doing anything at the "trial" when it was shown Jolene was working. Really, it seemed like most of the time they had a very hands off policy towards the girls and any fights, etc.

I was a bit confused at first with the walking the path stuff - how it basically turned into an uber power (although apparently you have to recharge).

I liked how Glass totally set up her trial, including the judges. I knew she wasn't extremely worried, but still....

We still don't know Zole well, but she is interesting to me. And it's also cool that we have a book where our main character, while important, is NOT the "chosen one". In fact, we know very little about Zole's thoughts.

It almost seems like Zole is approaching a sort of egomania/overconfidence. It's very possible this is the shipheart/devil's fault, but we did see a bit of that before, didn't we? And we also know why the Noi-Guin are so invested in the attack on the convent, they want the shipheart back.

Yes she does seem very confident. I guess it is possible it's the shipheart influence - that hadn't crossed my mind. I feel like she's such an enigma that it is really hard (for me at least) to tell if she has changed.

It's going to be a long year waiting for that next book :)

Suzanne wrote: "It's going to be a long year waiting for that next book :) "

Agreed. I want it now.

I saw him comment on Twitter he finished the series prior to the release of this book. I wonder why they are making us wait a whole year. Probably marketing.

Like you could release both books together or the final book later this year but then they maybe interfere with each other.

Plus if he's working on his next book and doesn't expect to finish until sometime next year for a 2020 publication then it's 1.5-2 years between Holy Sister and that book instead of only 1-1.5.

Interesting - that makes it almost harder to wait! However, it is nice to know that he has finished the series so that the next book will happen for sure in a year.

I keep thinking about the whole "world on fire" comment now.