Rating: 3 stars
😕 well this was a disappointment.
I’ve been largely pleasantly surprised by this series. It’s surpassed all my expectations, going far darker and far more emotionally resonant than I ever thought it would.
But this installment kind of just…wasn’t what I wanted?
Ultimately, this book felt like two, if not three (and honestly, maybe even four), different books smashed into one. I’ve always had my misgivings about the separate Rose and Lissa storylines, Rose’s usually being the better ones. But this took that disconnect and decided to ignore Lissa and give Rose all the storylines.
First, we have the heist. I loved that part, and loved how Rose is so dead set on accomplishing her goals but also has that part of herself that just wants to accept Adrian’s affection. It continued the great storyline from the previous book, all while connecting the overarching series plot very well. Loved that.
But then the heist ended. And we got another book. At this point, I wasn’t too worried. Blood Promise had done the same thing with its climax, suddenly focusing on something that really didn’t have any thematic significance on the rest of the story (and by that I mean Lissa’s side of things). And I still really liked Blood Promise, by the end of things. But this time we got a plot twist that was immediately brushed under the rug and forgotten by every single main character. We got Dimitri drama that, while more nuanced than I was expecting, didn’t really deliver on my hopes and dreams. It put the story into quite the lull, and we were barely halfway through at this point. Add that to the weird ritualistic stuff, the world-changing new information, and the random emphasis on Lissa’s dead father, and you’ve got yourself way too much plot for a book that isn’t even 500 pages.
But then it got worse.
Just in case you thought, “hmm, this teen vampire series sure does have a lot of heists and kidnappings. Sounds to me like it needs to become a procedural drama,” well, all your wishes came true! It became just that!
Most of this wasn’t inherently bad, nor was some of it executed poorly. But, at its core, this book didn’t know what it was about. Even at the basest level: the title means essentially nothing. Is Rose spirit bound? What is her spirit bound for? Or is it bound to something? The only thing I can think of is Lissa, but the book isn’t even about that. It’s about the queen and Victor Dashkov and Spirit users and Adrian being jealous and Dimitri being angsty and Lissa and Christian being petty and Rose floating around all of it. It’s about nothing and everything, and I just couldn’t get a handle on it.
I really hope this series ends well, because it was shaping up to be a favorite.
Also, can we ban Adrian Ivaskov from saying “hot” or “slutty” ever again? If we, as a culture, are going to cancel anything, can we cancel that? Because I like him otherwise, but whenever he says those things, I want to hit him in the face with a cement brick.
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