Liv Vincent

NO SPOILERS: The beginning picks up where Fourth Wing finishes and was incredibly excited from the get go as we all know Fourth Wing ends in a pretty good cliff hanger. However, I found myself really struggling to get through this book. When SJM books come out, I can smash through them without stopping but this one took me tuesday and Wednesday to get through because it did feel really repetitive (you’ll understand what I mean by this when you read it). In FW, I really loved Violets character, I thought she was going to be the next Aelin, but she was very bland and uneventful in this. There were several times in IF where she says something that’s evidently not true and she knows it because half a page later, theres a big revelation and every single time this happened I just went “yea I knew that already and so did you”. Violet’s character had no development in this book and neither did Xaden (minus the ending I suppose). The main revelations/twists in this novel were unsurprising and was easy to guess, I was never on the edge of my seat like I am with SJM books or Fourth Wing. Honestly to me this book seems like it was just thrown together and there wasn’t a lot of time thats gone into it. It felt like a repeat of Fourth Wing but with more drama between Violet and Xaden and I was really hoping they would be the next popular book couple, but they really weren’t - and when is Imogen and Garrick going to get together? Garrick was hardly in this book and had one or two interactions with Imogen! The dragons were as awesome as they were in Fourth Wing, even if Andarna is a slightly annoying adolescent in this book. I feel like there was more opportunity though to include Andarna in the second half of the book. The s*x scenes felt like they were just thrown in the book for the hell of it and didn’t really have much of a point except to show how much Xaden and Violet fought/got back together. In regards to the ending, it was a little bit of a shock and I do hate that we only get to see Xaden’s POV for one chapter at the end of each book - I do feel like we could have had more from his POV. The ending was probably the only thing in the book that slightly shocked me but the Sage (…no spoilers remember) said that he would get her to join them so it wasn’t that big of a surprise as they essentially told her that they know her weakness. I’ve edited this review many times because I keep thinking of things to add. My biggest hint that this book was rushed was the map. How can you make a map and talk/visit sooo many places in this book but not have them included on the map? How are we supposed to know where Samara and Athebyne are if they’re not on the map? What are the dots for? Cause they look too all over the place to be wards? I need answers. I suppose overall I really expected more from this book, don’t get me wrong though, there was a few times when I laughed at an interaction between Tairn, Andarna and Violet or something Ridoc said but overall it was lackluster and did not live up to the hype that the ending of Fourth Wing brought. It’s probably not a book I would reread as whilst I enjoyed the first half, I really really struggled to get through the second half.