“I know it hurts," she said. "So make it worth the pain.”

Holy crap?

I don't know how much I can say in this review without accidentally spoiling either book in this duology so what I will say is that this was beautiful and devastating and completely satisfying. This duology is what all other duologies should aspire to be; there's never a moment when I wished for more or less information, a perfect balance of the characters and the plot. Like book one, this book was dark and grim - even darker, but it was also unflinchingly hopeful in a way that book one wasn't.

It also made me miss the dystopian books era so much. At this point, I may have to just reread a few soon.

Also, side note to mention that the core conflict of this book felt like a reference to The Snow Queen fairytale which is one of my favorites and I reference it all the time. I don't know if that was intentional, but I got so excited when that plot-point showed up that I immediately told my sister lol.

Anyway... if it wasn't clear from the rest of the review, this was an incredible conclusion and just a really fantastic duology. If you can handle the darker topics, I highly recommend it.