TL;DR: A fantastic start and finish with a muddy middle. The ending was also… unexpected.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much to the publisher. I also purchased my own copy. 

Plot: This one wraps up the trilogy in a way that I didn’t see coming. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about it either.
Characters: A bit all over the place for some and others were great. A mix bag here.
Setting: Again, this was all over the place. I was so happy to be out of the school only to return so I’m not wild about that.
Fantasy: There is very little to nothing explained in the ‘magic’ or fantasy of the world here. It gets weirder in fact, but it still manages to work. 

Thoughts: 

Oh gosh I’m on the fence with this one y’all. I loved the second book in this series and genuinely thought the first book had a lot of promise with a strong start. But this third one I got whiplash in. I can’t give up much a summary here but there is a time jump from the end of book two to the beginning of this book, a time jump I feel like we needed more from. 

The first thing we see is what seems to be a realm in chaos. The rebellion Grievar and Grunts are causing trouble, and it seems to be profound. The Whelps are on a traditional travelling voyage, fighting tribes and groups across the land to work themselves up to a large fight between representatives and other students. Along the way we’re told (more than we truly see) how things have changed and we get the feeling things are tense in the world. 

More things happen and all the sudden we’re back in the school setting from book one and things are… calm? The Whelps are participating in life as if nothing is happening. All the tension and worries of the first quarter are gone and the book slows as we follow everyone through the school (which by the way has had a complete restructuring of leadership we didn’t see but were told). All this leads to a confrontation that again, completely undercuts any tension we were built and found in the first quarter. And the ending? I liked it… but I’m confused on why this was the goal, and even if this was good? I didn’t know that was the goal, was that what we wanted? 

I could feel a very strong inspiration in the end of this from Harry Potter. The return to school, the fighting the system from within the school, and the final showdowns, it felt very much like those same hallmarks in the HP series. Those tropes and tools are not a bad thing, but when this feels and screams that inspo so much? I don’t know what to think. I enjoyed a lot of this! But the structure and pacing, it was weird and felt poorly put together. I’ll continue to read Alexander Darwin and I’d read more in this series! But this final book? I’m not crazy about it. 

P.S. I’m still confused on the Flux tattoos. I feel like I remember them saying in the scene they were removed that they didn’t know that was even an option. But then NO ONE says anything about it when they go back to school? They seemed to have quite a few? Listen as someone with quite a few tattoos I’m 100% positive my friends and family would immediately be like “Where did your tatts go?” if I mysteriously showed up completely clean of them.