mayastef's reviews
179 reviews

The world-building was weak to me, but I understand that there are other books in this universe that maybe would fill that world-building hole for me, so that might just be the fault of my reading order, not the book. I overall liked the vibes of this book but I didn't feel it was anything super special. I do like the mafia vibe of the Ballengers so it is hard to see them as outlaws when I like their vibe so much. I am going to mark the next point as a spoiler out of an overabundance of caution but I truly do not believe it is one.  

The last chapter of the book threw me off so hard?? I thought that where Jase and Kazi's stories left off was a solid stopping point for the book to launch into a sequel and the very final chapter confused the shit out of me

This is the first book in the series to captivate me in such a way that I couldn't put it down. I think that is partially because this is the first one I've read not covered by the show. If the show gets a second season and adapts this book as well as they did the first 2 season 2 will be terrifying. 

lovely little book. there are a few things that resonated super hard with me. 

Listening to the audiobook read by the author herself is the way to go for this book. Hearing her story from her mouth really adds another layer of depth to this already very solid book. 

For a middle book in a trilogy??????? Holy shit? Tracy Deonn I am in need of the next book pls pls 

Absolute banger of a book. Race, grief, identity, love, magic, community, family its a book about so many things that can be so heavy, but the story never gets lost under the weight of the subject matter. The only reason it's not perfect is becasue it was really hard for me to pick up on the structure of the order of the round table at first and how exactly everyone fit in together. It made sense eventually, but I think Bree understands it before the reader gets a chance to (in my case), so I had a handful of confusing chapters before I figured it out. 

The plot of this follows a lot more closely to the show, so i think it was a more boring read for me. Idk i just wasn't feeling motivated to read it . I still have beef with how lucy is portrayed, and I think the root of that is the author being a man because she is a pretty accurate 15-year-old girl (hater to her core) but also, I'm a hater to my core, and male authors take a lot of that heat. 

I was reading in the baroness order and the story failed to really hook me in. I tried to push through but reading out of order makes you feel like you're not really making progress on the book and that's hard when you're already struggling with the pace and content of the story. Maybe I'd try this book again in the future.

I watched the show first so my review is potentially a bit warped (I'm not sure if its for better or for worse).  Love the premise of the books and love these kids trying to get shit done. My only real complaint is that they are like ~15ish years old which means they can be insufferable to each other but that's also a compliment to the author bc he did a great job representing teens.

The trilogy was good, I read all of them but they just were missing a certain je ne sais quoi to me. I think I like my fantasy books with slightly less scheming (or more entertaining scheming really) and a lot more love both romantic and platonic. Overall the series hovers between a 4 and 4.25 stars for me. there are other better books that I've rated 4.25 but there are also much worse books rated at 4 so I'm not sure where this falls for me. I have other thoughts but they are direct spoilers so thats it from me.