“memento mori
remember that you will die”

4.5 stars (up to full 5 after 2nd read)

what a rollercoaster ride this book was!

maas can write a book that sucks the reader into the story and makes everything feel.... well just feel. too real for a fantasy, too much to handle, and yes also too much stupidity and/ or over the top characters and male postering and too much mentioning of wings in a strange sexualized way.

but she always manages to make me feel everything.
and that’s something i have to give her a lot of credit for because not a lot of authors manage that in one book let alone every book.


sure the first 200 pages drag a bit and i actually struggled the first read through a lot through those pages because while it was all good and interesting and i wanted to know what would happen it also was taking a long time to finally get somewhere.
and the just above mentioned feelings? the love for the characters and just wanting to read that they are okay? they weren’t there yet because with how the story kind of drops the reader into the characters life’s without introduction made me not care a huge amount about what was happening to them at first.
and then the first big thing happens pretty quickly and is a huge deal for the entire book but because i didn’t know the characters? i can’t say that i cared too much. now i didn’t not care i just wasn’t feeling anything particularly about what happens because i didn’t know the people yet.
i need to know a character a little bit before i feel with/for/about them.

(that felt a lot different in the reread when i loved the female friendships and just love between friends in this book in general and all of a sudden the first big scenes was heart breaking this time around)


but at the same time i understand why maas wrote the start that way because it makes the reader question a character the entire book.
was it a good guy? a bad girl? both in a mixture that makes everything possible with the right reasoning ?
the reader doesn’t know because we don’t know the character!
so every questioning behavior makes the reader think. is it possible? could it be? or is it all a trick again?

“that’s the point if it, bryce. to live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. it makes everything that much more precious.”

the plot was good and the writing well done but the book could have been 200 pages shorter and still told everything it did.

the first read through that bothered me.
the second time i around i just enjoyed being there again and liked the overly lengthy-ness.

still would it still be a good book if a bit more would have been edited out?
absolutely!

and maybe the start wouldn’t have felt so dragging?
could be.

well never know and as it is it’s a great book.

“he told me to stop crying. said it would only satisfy those who wrong me. that i shouldn’t give them the gift of my sorrow.”

my personal favorite thing about this book is that it focuses very heavily on friendship - at least to and for me it did.
sure there’s romance.
there’s sex.
there’s family relationships that are complicated in one way or another.
there is all those different species each having their own issues with each other and all that has its own page time.
let alone the main dramas that make the book the already mentioned rollercoaster of an emotional sword fight.

but for me the friendships where what stood out the most and i loved.

i love bryce and danika.
those two were beautiful together! i love a female friendship that is just mutual respect and love and loyalty. understanding and support and just general goodness that should be shown more often in regards of two or more females!

but bryce in all her friendships was a great character to see.
how fierce protective and loyal she is.
and how it gets repaid back to her won’t equal loyalty even if she sometimes doesn’t see it.

i love how she sees a living creature as a friend and something worth while even if others don’t see it as more than a necessity.

is that more of a praise song for bryce as a character? or towards the friendships? not sure.

but hunt had his own team. sure more distant and not as clearly loving as bryce’s group but still the friendships were clearly there and it was beautiful.

and even rhyn had his buddies that worked and was a great representation of male friendship.

“there is nothing wrong with being a party girl. i don’t get why the world thinks there is.”

i think what we all need to remember when reading and especially rating this type of book by an author like maas who writes her books all very similar is this:
this type of fantasy has a specific formula (as basically all books do!)
in this case it’s sex thrown into a fantastical setting.

you can’t go into this book expecting the best world building.

the strongest character developments or beat fight scenes!

or even the most fantastic sex scenes ever written.

you go into this book to be entertained!
it’s the reality tv show of books!

it’s so bad it’s good!
it’s addicting!

and a lot of authors do that and have huge followings and in my option maas did. it pretty well in this book since the one main focus of this book was NOT the sex but rather it was just a natural side element that happens because why not?
sex is part of life so why not talk about it and share it as well?
at least that is how it felt to me.

i don’t think that maas overdid the sexy times in this book - i was actually pleasantly surprised how view scenes there where and how little description there was with them! because thank but i don’t need to know how all feels in 150 pages play by play!

she didn’t shy away from the topic, she had a very sex positive character which i loved because how often do we have a female main character that enjoys sex and goes after it when she wants it without slut shaming her on the next page?


i didn’t like how fast bryce went from liking a guy, to hating him because of something he did to basically enslaving herself to him because she just loooooves hin.
that didn’t make sense to me and i didn’t enjoy reading those pages at all.
i think that could have been handled differently and could have gotten to the same end results.



was it the best book ever?
NO!

is it a book for everyone?
NO!

is it a must read?
good god NO!

is it a super fun fast entertaining book?
yes!

is it a book i will continue to reread?
yes!