talesofaddi's reviews
87 reviews

4.5 stars rtc

The way this book YANKED me out of my reading slump. Holy shit was this a ride, and an incredible one at that. I have too many thoughts in my head rn but what I will say is that I am equal parts terrified and eager to for what’s to come in the next book.

I don’t know how I feel about this book. I was not engaged to the story as I was in the first one. So many things happened but it all felt a bit rushed and it was hard to follow at times.

I did not care about most of the characters. I tried to, especially for the Hawthorne brothers, but i just couldn’t. It was to the point that I didn’t care who Avery ended up with (I was kinda rooting for her to end up with Grayeson but I stopped when it became obvious that her and Jameson would be endgame). I think it would have been better if the author dedicated time in the narrative to flesh them out. This goes for all the other characters such as Thea, Rebecca, Alison and Nash (he, along with Xander I felt were sidelined for much of the book in favor of the love triangle which sucks because I really liked them in the first book.)

Avery herself wasn’t interesting personality wise (in my opinion, she never was but I still liked her more in the inheritance game than this one). The love triangle has a lot to do with that, as well as the fact that I find her narrative voice to be very bland.

Despite these issues, I still enjoyed the book (kinda). I’m going to continue on to the final gambit; I hope it turns out better than this one.

This is my first Hafsah Faizal book and I’m happy to say that I will be reading more from her. I was already sold from the blurb alone, anything with vampires in them is an automatic yes from me. And heists? Double yes
The book was such a ride, part three especially had my heart racing with all the reveals!! I really liked all the characters they bounced off of each other quite well. I especially loved Arthie and Jin; the bond they had was so special to me. Arthie herself was such an interesting character, and genuinely can’t wait to see her development in the next book! I just wish that we could’ve gotten more interactions between the cast it would’ve made what happens later on hit much harder. Perhaps if Laith and Matteo had their own povs it would’ve have elevated the book even more as they were quite intriguing characters with not nearly enough focus as the other three. Hopefully it changes in the second book
However, I will say that one thing I quickly learned about Faizal is that she can write some good ass romantic tension. Every time two certain characters (and my two I really mean four split into two pairs) interacted I found myself giggling and twirling my hair

4.5 stars

This book was just

4.5 stars

This was a great start to what’s probably going to be an amazing series! Loving most of the characters already and the artstyle is

4.5 stars
Omg are they (taichi and futaba) going to end up dating?? I’ve been loving their friendship so far but the ending has me wondering…

lord have mercy, this book was... an experience. I'll probably give a full review later on this week but as of right now all I have to say is that this was 300 and something pages of missed potential. It read like a first draft that needed major reworking on its characters, the worldbuilding, the plot, the pacing etc. Like I genuinely don't know how this got approved by whoever is on the editing team for this because some of the issues in this book are just too blatant to ignore (

Spoiler

such as the six month time skip which I'm sorry for the incoming mini-rant but like wtf? how did she think that was a good idea?
that was truly one of the main things that killed this story for me because how are you going from ryuing and antony making a deal with each other, with ryuing still heavily distrusting the prince for obvious reasons whilst not having that much control over her powers to her killing 48 people and describing antony's green eyes and his laugh, his cheeks and all that shit. Several steps were skipped here methinks and we the readers are supposed to just accept ryuings run-down of the past six months and call it a day. Like ik there has been some debate about whether the author intended for their relationship to be enemies to lovers or for it to be a clear case of manipulation on Antony's part but either way I still believe this was a huge mistake on the author's part to do this. to have the majority of their relationship development be offscreen is terrible because how am I suppose to believe or understand why Ryuing likes the guy? why she trusts him and truly believes in his vision of a peaceful era for both of their worlds? Like we don't see any of that, it's just told to us by Ryuing. And because of that, I can't take the relationship and either of the characters proclamations of their conflicting feelings for one another seriously. But beyond the relationship, I find it so weird how we don't see the first few kills Ryuing does on the orders of antony. A few chapters or scenes of her on her missons, seeing the types of people she is sent to kill and how it affected her would've been really compelling. but NOOOOO instead we are given a couple paragraphs where she describes the types of targets she killed in overly poetic writing. GAHHH okay end of rant

Spoiler

).