Stephanie Ochej

3.5 stars

I very nearly didn't finish this book. The first half-ish just wasn't for me, and I started to get frustrated because everyone raves about it. The romance takes a long while to start up, and not in a good way, in my opinion. Like it's not an anticipation thing, it just felt like there was nothing there between the characters. It also felt a bit slow and kind of boring to me, and I wanted more of the friendship between Oraya and Mische.

Once I got into the last third, things really began to pick up and I became exponentially more interested. The romance became really good, really quickly for me, and I'm so glad it turned out that way. The twists were also really interesting. I was intrigued enough by the end that I was excited to start book 2 to see where things would go. I hope I enjoy book 2 throughout, rather than mostly at the end, like this one.

My advice if you're struggling would be to stick this one out until the end - I think it'll turn around for you as well.

I've never written a review on here before but I'm so shocked by the hate for this book that I felt compelled to.

I absolutely loved this book and think that it's actually the best written of the entire ACOTAR series.

I had read everyone saying that the Inner Circle is so out of character in this book before I started reading, and then I started and kept waiting for this shocking and dramatic behaviour but it never came? People complained that this book ruined Feysand, and again, I'm left wondering where/how? I think given that this book is entirely from the perspective of Cassian and Nesta that we get a different point of view of the IC characters, but nothing out of character... I think Rhys not revealing to Feyre that he thought odds were very good she would die trying to birth their baby really had people up in arms, but I felt that was perfectly in character for him - a character who in the past has kept things from loved ones which he feared would hurt them in the (sometimes vain) hope that he'd be able to fix it before they'd ever find out. Am I saying this was the right thing to do? No. Am I saying it's realistic that one might do that, and realistic for Rhys, a character who has done this in the past, to do it? Absolutely.

SJM absolutely nails Nesta's character development/arc in this story, I think in a more satisfying way than for any other character in the series. Maybe it's just because I'm in a murky place mentally right now, but I found reading Nesta's story straight up inspiring. I honestly question how you could hate her at the end of this book, or any of the characters, for that matter. These characters are flawed and therefore very real, something which I appreciate when I'm reading a book.

If I had one critique of this book, it's that the ending wrapped up a tad quickly, but other than that - very solid read.

I don't know, guys... all I'll say is, if you're hesitating to read this book because of all of the aggressively hateful reviews online, try to set them aside and give it a chance. I was disappointed at first that this wasn't from Feysand's POV to the point that I thought about skipping it, and then I read it and it became my favourite book of the series. If you want to follow a very satisfying character growth arc, the spiciest smut of the entire series, and a story that highlights the incredible powers of unconditional love and friendship (I am obsessed with the Valkyries and their smutty book club and sleepovers) , give this a read – you won't regret it.

I loved this book. It tied up all loose ends and wrapped the whole story up nicely for me. It also left me wanting more, in a I-will-read-any-scrap-of-headcannon-Stark-offers-us-about-these-characters-going-forward kind of way, which I think is a pretty resounding endorsement of this book and series.

I really enjoyed this book.

At first I was a bit confused because it seemed like nothing was going on and the story was very straightforward - our main character had one goal in mind and planned to do whatever to follow it. About 20% - 30% of the way in I found myself asking “Is this is?” but I'm usually pretty good at giving authors the benefit of the doubt and I'm glad I held out, because this story was anything but straightforward.

I kind of liked this style of writing of letting layers be added over time (even up to the very end of the book), rather than being hosed with a bunch of information I can't possibly understand right off the bat and slowly understanding more as the story goes on. Maybe my ADHD brain felt less stressed at getting a trickle of information throughout, rather than having to remember and keep straight details to understand later. (To be clear, though, I do like and appreciate both styles of writing)

I liked Prisca. She can hold her own and she's got sass. She's also not preternaturally talented, which I appreciated. I knew I would like Lorian from the first time he interacted with Prisca, and I still liked him at the end. Stark had me hooked early on and I became very impatient for them to get together (in a good way).

One thing that bothered me was that Prisca didn't seem to explore some things that a normal person presumably wood. For instance, she's raised her entire life to fear the fae, but when she finds out she's a 'hybrid' (half-fae, half-human) she just kind of shrugs and moves on. Like I would expect her to war with that a lot more instead of just accepting it. There were a couple of other bits of info like this that I found distracting, but overall it didn't take away too much from the story for me.

All in all, I've already downloaded the second book and I can't wait to start reading it right after I post this review.