Maddi
Spent the last 20% of this book fighting off tears while grinning. I now have a headache appropriate of a proper book hangover.
A love story about what it means to be loved and belong simply by being exactly who you are.
“Maybe it's possible to belong in a hundred different ways to a hundred different people and places”
Would have been more likely to give this a 3 if the ending hadn't dropped off so abruptly. The story needed at least 2 or 3 more chapters to better tie everything together.
Overall, the idea for the plot was interesting enough. The characters and setting had a surface level appeal, but I felt detached from the characters. The dialogue was lacking, making it hard to get fully absorbed in the story.
When I read a really good book, I can't seem to put it down and can easily finish it within a day or two if I want to. Which is exactly what I did with the first two books of this trilogy. Now, this final book? This final book was so good that I found myself putting off finishing the last 25% of the book because I wasn't ready to be done with the characters and their world.
As sad as I am to be done with this series, Marie Lu made it so worth it to finish. I have never been so emotionally invested and satisfied with the ending of a story. I kept bracing myself for the worst and thinking I had things figured out, only to be whipped over to a new possibility that I hadn't thought of.
Devastating, exciting, joyous– these characters and their stories will stick with me for a while.
spoilers!!
Is it just me, or was everything that ever happened and every bit of character development that occurred over the last 4 books totally and completely for nothing? I am thoroughly underwhelmed by how this series ended.
Geralt, our bad-ass, sarcastic, and determined Witcher? Yeah, makes sense that he will actually be one of the blandest characters and will proceed to ultimately “die” in the lamest, most un-heroic way possible and settle for domesticity. Yennefer, again, another bad-ass, determined character, contributes nothing interesting but being able to throw shields up during fights and then just kind of sucks at other attempts at magic. Ciri, the character in which the last 4 books have built up to be someone powerful and important? She escapes her many foes trying to use and abuse her, only to never regain any sort of power or do anything important for the world. She only manages some heroics at the end with Geralt and Yen because of her dumb unicorn, and then she just kind of blips out to also settle for domesticity? So out of character, so anticlimactic.
And why God, why, did I have to follow any part of Jarre or Iola's story? So boring and it was time that could have been spent on our main characters so their storyline didn't suck.
I'm not sure I can even express the disappointment of how Geralt's party all die in unbelievably lame ways. Or how I'm supposed to believe Emehr, after tearing the world apart in war to find Ciri, just gives her up because he saw that she was sad??
Otherwise, there was some decent writing and plenty of scenes that were fun to read. This was on it's way to being my favorite fantasy series. I absolutely love the world and characters. I look forward to the Netflix show hopefully salvaging the wreckage of this final book. In the mean time, I will continue to play the Witcher 3 and pretend that it is canon, hopefully erasing the unfortunate storyline of this final book.
2.5 stars.
A book I'm sure I will read again and again in my lifetime. Rohr's wise words are a reassuring guidance through the flailing and falling of the “first half of life”, and a matured, loving welcome into the second; Where one can finally see they have been falling upward the whole time. - Signed, A twenty-something, first-half-of-lifer who is trying to trust that she too, is falling upward.
