Devils

I'm currently at a point in life where I don't want to use my braincells all that much and just want to be taken on a fun and unhinged ride. ZA has certainly delivered on that department!

!!!WARNING!!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS

So, the book reads like a classic Wattpad fiction story which, if is a pet peeve of yours, this might not be for you (personally, I find it to just add to the unhinged vibe). I struggled to get throug the first few chapters until the twins actually made it to Solaria and started exploring the new world. In a way the whole setting seems to be a bastard child between Winx Club x Harry Potter. The magic system and the world of Solaria is something which my 15 year old Witch craft phase ass would have been obsessed with, so points for that aesthetic. Another thing which made this whole thing more enjoyable is the Graphic audio audio book which I would highly recommend (it's just more fun imo).

When it comes to the plot, the whole book seems to span a course of 1/1.5 weeks and oh boy are they eventful. So i didn't feel bored throughout the story but there were definitely lots of WTF moments, main one being this wierd tension between Darcy and Orion. Now, I don't know who are the end game couples (the Twins seem to be having a trial run with all the Heirs anyway) but I'm so not comfortable with this "Forbidden love", "Teacher/Student" relationship thing. It just feels so wrong and kinda gross to me. But no judgment towards people who like this trope!

The characters.... did i mention that I dislike Orion already?? He is my least fave character in the series rn, obviously big part being his "romantic" tension with Darcy as a professor, but also his absolute batshit crazy behavior with his students. Actively insulting them, harming them and threatening them is just wild to me. I get that things work differently in this "mirror world", but I just think Orion ain't the person to be a professor with his temper...

The heirs are just a bunch of unhinged frat boys, which I ain't complaining about. It's like "just here for a good time not a long time". But something odd which I felt was that Max wasn't really all that much in the story... like I sometimes would forget that he is even there because there aren't many interactions with him.

Another thing which annoyed me is that how fast the twins seems to have forgotten that the heirs hate them and actively trying to get them out of ZA to not loose their throne. Like girl, he was just holding you by the neck and dangling you over the ravine and the next day you are just fine with it?? This especially ticked me off in the second later half of the book when the heirs were being "nicer" to them to ask for the dance (and before that the whole club scene) and they were just FINE with it. Seemingly forgetting that these bitchasses want them GONE (i was especially left speechless at the Tory x Caleb classroom spice scene...). So when the girls finally got their well deserved punishment at the end of the book, I was laughing and giggling sO much. They absolutely deserved that and hope they got some braincells back.

So, is this the best thing I've ever read? Absolutely not. But is it entertaining in a "guilty pleasure" sort of way? Yes. So far ZA is "here for a good time not a long time" sort of vibe for me. It's a fun no braincells required story and has gotten me out of a reading slump.

Even though i did enjoy this book as much as the first one, this felt like a Naruto filler episode for me most of the time until like the very last part where all hell broke loose.

It was fun reading about how the twins got their revenge from each heir but I really feel like this could have been a novella. There was no need for this to drag out the entire book until the end.

All the little lore we got sprinkled during these revenge plans could have just been straight to the point. The best way I can describe this books's pace is y=x². You start off from the cliffhanger left from the previous book and then it just keeps going downhill in terms of plot and things happening. Then it starts to pick up again at the very end and end on another cliffhanger. You could just read the beginning and the end and call it a day.

So far i see a trend of 1 spicy chapter of Tory x Caleb per book and they still don't make sense to me apart from it being fan service.

I would highly recommend listening to the first 2 books in this series as graphic audio because that's the only way I found myself actually being immersed and starting to care/bond with the characters. The action and lore finally seem to have picked up at the end and I hope that this momentum will be carried throughout the 3rd book.

In the previous book review I mentioned how the plot and pace finally seem to be picking up and that this continues into the 3rd book. Needless to say I'm kind of disappointed...

The entire book felt like a carrot being dangled infront of me to keep reading to find the answer to the burning question "what are the order forms of the twins?". So imo, this fallowed the same formula as the last book, y=x². We pick up right from the absolute chaos which we left off at the end of book 2, and spend maybe a few chapters recovering from that, and just continuing on with the obnoxious student life in ZA. The Nyphms did not feel like a threat AT ALL through out the book as their presence is negligible and none of the students or teachers seem to be all that worried about it (even tho they have curfew now and patrol, but again no one is fallowing that).

"it will test the abilities you have learned in your Elemental classes" (which nothing???)

When it came to "The Reckoning" i was also quite disappointed as I expected the trials to actually be something hard, challenging and epic.... But given that these students were basically taught nothing up until these trials, I guess we can call them challenging enough for them.

The jumbled up headphone wires of relationships between the characters...

"“I thought you were different,” he said slowly. “But you’re just like your whore of a sister, pining after bastardos who treat you like dirt and who only give you a second look because you’d drop onto your knees for them any time they liked. Es patético.”" (YES PREACH HERMANO! FINALLY SOMEONE WITH BRAINCELLS )

So I think Diego has summed it up pretty well. This scene I was so confused because how is it that Tory can prefer her literal bully and enemy over her friend who is asking her for help. If anything the "sex addiction" claims on Tory Vega seem to really be holding up.

At this point the only character I care about is Geraldine. I just want to read an entire spinoff series with her because the main "plot" is not plotting...

Overall, it was a fun read but that's about it. So far this series is just a turn off your brain and let the drama play out vibes.

INCOMING: MY HUMBLE OPINION

I'm not sure how I managed to get through all the 500+ pages (it was a fever dream) but I made it out of spite. There really isn't any plot happening here, it's a fuckfest through and through, which is absolutely fine if that's what u want, but I didn't even enjoy the fuckfest in this book. There was only 1 part of the book which got me going "Wait whaaatt??? what next then?" which was when Blake was getting tested by the Lords to see if she would sign the divorce papers (and how she was dealing with Cindy afterwards). Apart from that I honestly didn't feel like I cared about any of the characters apart from Tyson maybe (he at least had some intrigue going for him).