Meh. Just meh.

A quote from my journal entry 3 pages in: "PLEASE GOD STOP SPOON FEEDING US EVERYONE'S COMPLETE THOUGHTS ABOUT THEIR MORALS ONCE THEYRE REVEALED TO BE GOOD GUYS AND LET US DECIDE HOW GOOD THEY ACTUALLY ARE. I should not be rolling my eyes this early in the book."

I stand by that statement and would like to add that a fantasy world has never felt so small. I have no sense of how far away anything is because they seem to get everywhere - even across the world - in the course of a few hours. Like, at least tell me explicitly the time it takes to cross from one side of the city to another and STICK WITH IT.

And the deus ex machina is RIDICULOUS. Life-saving characters just happen to show up at the perfect time for confrontations when they were seemingly across the city just a few paragraphs ago. Also, we never hear anything about other countries aside from the three places that are relevant to the plot. What are they doing this whole time?? Is no one else banding together to fight either the rebels or the Asteri across the world??? I'm sure they are, because it's briefly mentioned, but why is everything important for a GLOBAL CONFLICT happening in only two locations?

And I was so disappointed by the 'Avengers assemble' aspect of all the Crescent City characters banding together or whatever. The POV characters abilities and relationships felt more convenient to the plot than anything else, and they all had the same perspective on the main conflict, for the most part, so there was hardly any interpersonal conflict within the group. And somehow, despite the plot being the only significant arc that moved forward throughout the whole book, the chapters felt like filler 90% of the time. I guess that's because there was very little subtext - frequently only the plot would progress or characters said things literally anyone would expect, and therefore made the relationships and minor conflicts pretty predictable and straight-up boring.

And the worst betrayal was the crossover. There was almost no point at all to

Bryce going to the OG fae world other than lore dumping and a stupid subplot with Azriel and Nesta that could've been shortened by about 100 pages. (I know this is true because EVERYONE was excited and theorizing about it after CC2, but CC3 just came out this year and no one has been talking about it.) All she did was retrieve a few overpowered artifacts that had zero consequences for wielding them. Even Nesta struggled with the mask in ACOSF, and Bryce just uses it over and over again with no problem, no soul-destroying consequences or anything? I guess I can forgive that if she has special Horn chosen one powers, but she is always somehow able to teleport around a million times even after going on about how she's completely drained of magic?

I am all for soft magic systems but I would seriously like for there to be any real consequences for the characters using it.

Also, THIS WAS A PLANET-WIDE WAR (allegedly)

AND THE ONLY NAMED GOOD GUY WHO DIES IS JESIBA?? Despite everyone having a martyr complex like no other?? And Bryce is brought back to life after making a whole big deal about sacrificing herself (again)?? The only thing that would've made me more pissed would be Jesiba popping out of the portal to the black hole like Amren out of the fucking cauldron at the end of ACOMAF.

TOG spoilers incoming:

where's the brutal, unexpected death of Nehemia, or Chaol getting paralyzed and never fully recovering, or even (this trope sucks but at least it was something, and let's face it, she was overpowered from the start) Aelin losing most of her magic? For a sacrifice to mean something, it has to actually BE a sacrifice. Sorry, you can't do things by halves and expect it to have the same effect. You can't Chekhov's gun me by setting up a known martyr under the firing squad and not having the guns go off - at least, not more than once, and let me tell you, it's a LOT more than once.

Also, I don't think Maas knows how black holes work. But whatever.

TLDR: I wanted to love this, but I literally cannot make myself care anymore because actions never have lasting consequences and there's only so many times "omg all hope is lost someone's definitely going to die - oh just kidding they were miraculously saved by another character or a random spurt of power because 'love' or a plan they had up their sleeve THE WHOLE TIME and boom there goes the tension it's gone" can happen before all I can think about is how much I want this book to end.

Like, don't come for me, I really do enjoy ACOTAR and TOG a lot (albeit with some criticism) and used to frequently reread them. I'll probably continue to read Maas books - praying they get better. I know a lot of the Maasverse lore and used to enjoy theorizing about it, back when it felt like it mattered. I was really excited for the crossover and really hoping for the stakes to be raised, to experience tension and heartbreak and intrigue. But if you want that, too, don't look for it in this book. It was a complete disappointment and a waste of paper.