Lisa

A dynamic journey full of history, secrets, magic, and fate that spans centuries.

At it's core, this is a book about tough love and character development. Diana has a lot to understand with her unpredictable magic as well as her deepening relationship with Matthew (and his lifetimes of secrets). Matthew has to come to terms with the actions of his past in light of his newly shifted priorities. Despite getting a break from the pursuit of the Congregation, danger still surrounds them. It's only by trusting each other that they can survive.

There's a lot to like about this one. It's full of historical easter eggs, found family, suspense, and mystery, but where it really shines for me is the gift of having more time. More time for Diana to master her magic. More time for them to understand their relationship. More time with old friends and loved ones.

Without going into detail, there are strong themes of forgiveness, bittersweet happiness, and closure that bring me to tears every time.

Often book two in a series can feel a little slow, especially if it's essentially one big training montage, but I think this book avoids that. It overcomes some of the more obvious obstacles in progressing the plot in a way that doesn't feel tedious or like time wasted.

This was paranormal romance with a Stranger Things meets after school special kind of feel. The mystery at the core of the plot kept me interested and compelled me to finish the book. I think this would rate higher for younger readers because it really is an interesting premise, I just personally had issues with some of the writing choices.

Most of the book is in Riley's point of view, a few times in Asher's, and then 70% of the way through you get a chapter from a third character's perspective (and then a fourth). I think had we gotten chapters from everyone more frequently it would have worked really well, but new perspectives 70% of the way into the book was jarring.

There are a lot of very specific pop culture references that I think will quickly become outdated.

Overall the tone of the book feels young. I kept forgetting that some of these people are in college which made the sex scenes (despite everyone being of age) uncomfortable.

And without spoiling anything, the mechanics of the paranormal part of the story were so basic that when something supernatural happened at the climax of the plot, I found it unbelievable.

I think I would have loved this in high school but it's not something I'm planning on recommending or rereading.

Three stars for this book specifically, but 4-5 on average for the series as a whole.

This is a fine book one, but it's doing a lot of heavy lifting to set up the rest of the series. SJM's big three all have wildly different tones, so I would advise not going into this with the expectation that it's going to be “ACOTAR with different characters”. This is more fantasy forward. It's a strong series but I don't think it really hits its stride until you start getting into book three.

Unpopular opinion: I think it's fine to skip this series if you aren't enjoying it. It's a lot of books, and while I love them and think it's worth it, they're just not going to be for everyone. The consequences of not reading it are minimal in the grand scheme of things.

I'm reviewing this off a reread, so I tried to rate it objectively even though I know where the potential pays off.