Kings Rising

I'm sad this is over. I'll miss Damen and Laurent so much. Wow, I can already feel the book hangover coming. Despite the flaws I noticed in the book, and despite the parts of it that weren't completely suited to my personal preferences, I binge read this entire book in one day because I just couldn't get enough of reading any interactions that took place between Damen and Laurent. I had so many mixed feelings about the potential direction that their relationship would go in when I read the first book in this trilogy, [b:Captive Prince 9305362 Captive Prince (Captive Prince, #1) C.S. Pacat https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356028113l/9305362.SY75.jpg 14188292]. I was having a hard time justifying the potential for anything more than disdain between these two characters, because of the lashings Laurent gave Damen while enslaved. But in this book, all the infuriating actions of Laurent, everything, it all finally made sense. The actions themselves definitely were not okay, no one will argue that, but they are now understandable. It was so satisfying, finally understanding it all, and receiving a highly satisfying ending as well. I didn't binge the last two books of this series for the politics or the world or anything of the sort (though the politics and world-building were phenomenal), I binged it because somehow, these two characters and their relationship ended up meaning so much to me and had me so intensely invested. Even Damen, a character who I was obviously rooting for but didn't have any particularly strong feelings towards, turned out to be a character who I now adore. The same goes for Laurent, which is not something I thought I would ever say, but here we are. Honestly, this is more of a 4.5 star book in my opinion. But I only read this book for Laurent and Damen, and I was extremely happy with what I got of them so I really want to give this 5 stars just based on that alone (which is exactly what I'm doing) :D