Reviews with content warning for Racism - Kartiks Schicksal

Man oh man, what to say about this book? Mostly, if I were to be short, I would be like "It's about time..." because for two and a half books in this series, there has been next to no character development, the plot just feels More of the Same, More of the Same, repeated three times, and if I hear one more girl complain about corsets I'm gonna barf. But, finally, in the last half of this book, we finally get some character development. Gemma finally starts taking risks, finally starts taking responsibility for her role in the world and in the realms, starts looking inward at her strengths and flaws and stops flitting about sulking and wantonly using magic she never bothers to understand. She also starts actively trying to see her family in the three dimensions she desperately wishes they would see her in, a trait that bothered me endlessly this entire series. The hypocrisy of teenagehood. I also found constant pacing issues, things taken too quickly that seem super important or whole chapters wallowing in angst and boredom. Because of all that, I found the first half of this book a bit of a slog. And because of how long these three books are, I'm not 100% sure that the resolution at the end was fully worth the haul to get there. I also felt by the conclusion, there were so many ends to wrap up, that some of the ones I cared about the most - especially Felicity, Ann, and Pippa's stories - felt rushed and too easy, too perfect, and that was disappointing. I'm satisfied that I got any good plot and character development, but I feel so much of it came at a pretty high cost.

Speaking of high costs...

Kartik. I honest to god do not understand the point of him sacrificing himself for Gemma aside from providing Gemma the out. Like, I guess?? But also, there had to be another, more creative solution?? Like this felt lazy and pointless heartache I didn't even feel because it was all so rushed?? What a bummer.

And while I'm at it,

one of the big critiques I saw in other reviews I looked at was people being pissy about Felicity and Pippa. That it was tokenism, that it didn't make sense, but Felicity had the fling with Ithal, why make them be lesbians, etc. First of all, bi-erasure right there, cool your jets... Second, I remember thinking in the first book "Man it would be cool if they were sweet on each other." While I do take issue that their close friendship for two books suddenly became much more obviously romantic in this one, and I also take issue that yet again, that one of the (could be) cute gay couple got killed off, I don't find is as utterly unbelievable as so many reviewers. Get ahold of yourselves.

Anyway, I am pleased to be done with this series. I would maybe skip this one and if you want to read fun historical YA fantasy, just read the Diviners Series, it's way better.

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