Niki

If I wouldn't be reading for the fun of finishing it before we go watch the movie in the cinema, I wouldn't have finished it.

Once upon a time, I was so mad at random Redditors that were attacking Colleen Hoover and I didn't get where the dislike is coming from as I always loved her books. In my twenties… Maybe I am too old for her books now.

I didn't like Lily's inner voice and her constant Lilysplaining. Some events and wordings and setups were there just because and without any logical ground. At one point I was thinking if I should save all ridiculous quotes, but I didn't want to ruin my profile. In the end, I managed to save some good ones, few of them. All the stars that were given from me to this book were mostly because of Atlas.

Ali is genius. I love her writing, love how she can write these intense scenes and make such a lovable and real characters. I love how she makes these stories feel real and believable. A certain touch of magic is needed for that and Ali for sure has it.

However… I think, if I wouldn't have all the chess nostalgia while reading this book, I might rate it lower. But now… I can't give it less than 5 stars.

It is a little bit juvenile, super sweet, but breathtaking nevertheless.

The reason why I love SJM's books and stories is that the writing is super captivating, you learn about characters through their actions and relationships they have with other characters, sometimes even through small gestures, and characters always feel like a family. Like best friends, you have spent years with and not just a few hours reading about them.

I felt the same about Bryce, Hunt, and Ruhn, I even sometimes felt this about Tharion and Ithan.

So when I started reading CC #3, I made myself croissants, I put on my Ruhn Danaan T-shirt, and I hyped up myself and all my friends... And then 30th Jan came and I dived into the story.

I loved that the crossover part wasn't what we expected - that while we waited for this book, we went overboard with the imagination about how Bryce would interact with our favorite high lord and high lady, with our favorite warriors,... and then we didn't get it. This made sense as SJM said we would be able to read each series as an independent series and for me, this was enough and great. It didn't satisfy my hype... But I wasn't disappointed, I was kinda of impressed she made this move and wrote it like that.

Not to mention the whole suffering and torture of Hunt and Ruhn (and Baxian, OK). Ruhn's suffering literally killed me. I cried and yelled to the Kindle because of his inner thoughts and comments he made out loud. Some scenes were just... really painful. It was like I knew Hunt could take it, but for Ruhn, I always felt he was such a sensitive baby...

40% later I was still super invested in the story... I had some issues with Bryce and how spoiled, stupid, and weird she was acting - but OK - I knew she was in distress because her mate and brother were captured and she felt all this pressure of going back and she made some stupid acts.

But then... Then everything started falling apart.

The writing got worse and worse. There were these repetitive phrases and words that started to annoy me. Feelings and characteristics weren't shown anymore but described in a way where the writer wants to convince the reader to feel a certain way and I just wasn't feeling it. The relationships had weird and uncalled situations for the sake of drama. The resolutions of situations had no proper basis. Everyone got promoted. Things were happening that had no base or no indication of happening. Bryce was getting more and more annoying, egoistical, and unsupportive. Hunt was getting more and more whipped and wiped (sorry, but for real, I spent 1 year defending Hunt for not being the thing that SJM turned him into in this last book). Tharion was even worse than Aedion. Ithan wanted to be Chaol but failed at being even that. Sigrid who? Sathia what? Murder Twins like there is Halloween? Everyone was acting like they were 12 years old. Smut scenes were average at best. Cheezy lines that were out of character. Recycled lines from the previous two books. And watch this: everything was still happening within 7 days. All promotions and characters purification and realizations and trauma solutions in just 7 days. There were so many things bothering me, so many things left unclear and without sense, that I won't be able to list all of them. Page after page something was off, either with plot or with writing or with the way character was acting. To the point that I started questioning if it was really SJM who wrote this.

I kept reading just for Ruhn's and Lidia's sake. For Bryce and Autumn King's banter. For Morven's hilariously stupid comments. And for the hope that I will get ACOTAR and TOG references and appearances. Then slowly I lost Morven, I lost Autumn King, and then I also lost Ruhn and Lidia as they finally merged and even that felt rushed and unfinished and with a million things missing.

90% in I have got this feeling that we will get TOG appearance. I got super excited again. Then, nothing happened aside from an information dump and I was again disappointed and left down.

I cried last 10% of the book. I was pretty sure that the crying came from all the nostalgia and me saying goodbye to the characters (although I think we started saying goodbye to them at 30% of the book as they were not acting the same as in the previous two books at all). Maybe I cried because of the disappointment building in me that I was able to voice out only days after I finished the book. I don't know.

All I know is that I am disappointed. Like really disappointed. Maybe I wouldn't be as much if SJM wouldn't ruin Hunt. I could probably accept ruining other characters, but for Hunt, I will never be able to forgive her (and I am feeling like such a drama queen writing this, but it's true). I feel like Hunt felt after Shahar. Ruined. Good luck bringing me back, Sarah. No amount of croissants, RDTCPOTVF tu tu tu, and Lidia's fanart will help me after this.

Lately, I started being more strict with my ratings, but I can't give less than 5 stars to all categories…

Rebecca Yarros managed to answer almost all important questions that I had through reading first (and second book) and COULD be the plot hole but weren't. She did it elegantly, not forced, as a part of the story. She raised new questions as well.

I can't wait for third book to come out.

Yes, there are ideas in the story that we saw in some other, older books, but it is still sooooooo uniquely written and the story flows so nicely, it didn't bother me not even once. 🥰

Oh god damn.

This book started really heavily and it was so hard to read because of the heaviness of situation. Then it started becoming lighter and I again finished it super fast. The ending again… You twisted, twisted sisters.

The writing in this book was also way better than previous books. I can't explain it exactly, but my friend said that she noticed there is more inner monologues that have really much more sense now. Which made the book a little bit harder to read as characters were struggling, but this book felt way more polished than previous books.