"My most anticipated book of the year was a flop. The pain is greater than you can imagine.


This is the grand finale, the ultimate end, the culmination of the Ember series. Did it do its job? Yes. The series is now over. *crying* But what a terrible way to end it. Everything I liked was destroyed. And I was left with... this.


Like in Reaper, we follow three different first-person perspectives: Helene (Blood Shrike), Elias (Soul Catcher), and Laia (Laia). All I can say is... what happened to my babies??


Laia:

I used to love her. So much. And now I detest her. She turned into a complete Mary Sue character and it physically pains me. She gets new powers every page. The reason I liked her was because she was just a normal girl. But now she can turn invisible (only when it's convenient, though), she's suddenly amazing at every weapon she picks up, and she has a jinn living inside her who grants her supernatural powers whenever she needs them.

And she's also ridiculously reckless. Half the plot could be cut out if Laia just listened to the people around her. Don't remind me of that one time she stopped in the middle of a battle to cry over the corpse of some random kid and almost got killed.


Helene:

I can't think of her as the Blood Shrike, sorry. She's my cinnamon roll Helene Aquilla.

At the very beginning of the book, we see her interactions with Laia. And they are best friends all of a sudden. This came out of nowhere. Where's the development? They hated each other for three books. I highly doubt they're besties now.

And she kept blushing. Like, can you not? I get that Helene was infatuated with Avitas, but this is not in character for my stoic, cold as steel Blood Shrike.


Elias:

I hate Elias's character arc with everything I have. In case you haven't read the series, he makes a deal with the jinn to become the Soul Catcher and transport souls to the next world by talking them through their troubles. He's basically a god-tier therapist. And he just lost everything that made me ship him and Laia. He's so angsty all of a sudden, and not in a good way. "Do I love Laia? No, I'm the Soul Catcher and must stay emotionless. But I love Laia! But... no?" It got old really fast.

And his POV parts were so boring. They were all the same. Just Elias's emotional turmoil as he cut down trees or whatever in the forest. Spare me.



The main problem, though, is that the POVs were interchangeable and indistinguishable. Sometimes I would forget whose perspective I was reading. Helene, my poor little angry cinnamon roll, felt like Laia. Elias was as moody as Laia. Laia was good with weapons like Elias and Helene.



I noticed another recurring theme throughout the book--the overwhelming number of overused YA tropes that were sprinkled in. No, not sprinkled. More like dumped.

There's the deus ex machina. What's up with this?? "All is lost--but wait, someone's there to save us!" I am tired. Very tired. And the final battle scene, which was absolute rubbish, was only resolved because Keris was killed. Killed because of... I don't want to say this. Her tRaGiC bAcKsToRy. Which was nonexistent and irrelevant in the previous three books, but suddenly appeared just because she needed to die. Don't treat my poor evil Keris like that. She was so awesome. How dare you kill her in this way?

And then there's the delay of confrontation. This is one of my least favorite tropes. Laia would stare at the Nightbringer in the middle of the carnage, and he would let her go. Just kill her or something, I dunno, I'm not an evil villain. I think.


I finished reading this a few days ago, but I'm still laughing over the sTUPID FINAL BATTLE SCENE--

Basically, a storm... eats them... *coughs* I don't know, either. I really don't know. There's some side plot with a "maelstrom" that's threatening to devour the souls? And Elias is upset because his job is dependent on the souls, and you know... I guess he wants to get his full retirement benefits? I DON'T KNOW, OKAY? And then this storm shows up in the middle of the battle, eats all of them, forces them through some speshul flashbacks, and then spits them back up. The end. Unicorns and rainbows and fluffy puppies.



There's only one major thing I liked about this book, and that's the Nightbringer and the jinn. They're forgettable as villains in general, but it was so creative how they were shown as three-dimensional people (well, not people, but you know what I mean), instead of just purely evil motivated-by-revenge type characters. The Nightbringer had a bad lot. His family was slaughtered, the jinn are suffering in captivity. But he has friends who love him, and he loves them back. *chef's kiss*


Overall, this was utterly forgettable and extremely underwhelming. I'm very angry because this terrible finale ruined my wonderful happy memories of the first three books. I'm suing.


2 stars, BUT THE COVER WAS SO PRETTY--


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Rest in pieces my expectations.
Review to come...


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I can't believe I'm holding this in my hands
*crying*
I'M NOT READY

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If the release date for this gets pushed back any longer, I will simply ✨pass away✨"