i finished this yesterday but needed to process

as always, i'll keep this ✨️spoiler free✨️, but lawd it's hard not to mention certain things

let's just start with the basics

w r i t i n g - 
i hated it. why oh why does violet feel the need to mention how shocked she is that her man is good looking over and over again every single time she sees him? like, does she have memory loss? oh...

no but seriously, i truly couldn't stand the amount of boring filler and pointless people in this story. halden, for example. most pointless, useless human in existence. 

and one more gripe I had was the names. stop switching between first and last names so much! im dying here 🫠 honestly had no clue who was who half the time

next, r o m a n c e - 
okay, dont come for me, but lawd was i bored. at this point, i'm sorry, but xaden literally bores me. dain would've been more exciting than this man. this felt tooooo broody, and it was just lacking anything to make me care anymore about their supposed romance. it honestly seems more like a liability than anything else at this point 

thirdly, p l o t - 
did some parts surprise me? yes, absolutely. 
did i cry multiple times? also yes
was this on par with fourth wing? no. fourth wing felt well fleshed out. it felt subtle and hid things well.

onyx storm, however, is about as subtle as a car crash. violet literally thinking "weird." about hints at certain things, for example. so blatantly obvious i can't even. or certain people just magically knowing things for ✨️no reason✨️ lmao like come on, you can do better than that 

lastly c h a r a c t e r s - 
violet felt a bit slow this time around... isn't she supposed to be smart? idk i feel like she didn't spot some super obvious things

as you saw above, xaden clearly got on my nerves, and i'm over him, sorry not sorry

aaric i love for obvious reasons. honestly, one of the more interesting characters

ridoc was fantastic and had some of the absolute best comedic timing, thankfully. that was desperately needed

tairn and andarna... comedy was one thing that was missing from their relationship this time. they were much more fun in iron flame, and it just felt lacking this time around

tbh i like dain. have since iron flame, and i really didn't get the hate, though that man has some secrets for sure. 

bodhi was fine, but like... idk can't say anything without spoilers, but dude.. 

everyone else just hasn't stuck out enough for me to even comment tbh 

o v e r a l l -
it was fine. i complain, but like, i had a good time. it certainly wasn't even close to the worst book i've read. part of the plot did surprise me, and i do have theories for the next book, but this definitely wasn't fourth wing level 

➛ 𝟑.𝟓 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬