Reviews

Did the writing get more annoying somehow? And how was it possible that Wen was even more insufferable than before? Book one set me up to expect a galactic romance that defies odds, but that romance hardly made an appearance in book 3. It was pages upon pages upon pages of strategy and schemes. The Wraiths were SO obnoxious. I'm disappointed. I just wanted my boys to spend some more time together and be in love.

brand_orr's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

debchan's review against another edition

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1.0

all i wanted was for them to commit to this angst-filled betrayal-driven rival empires. it seemed like skrutskie tried to blend political/war machinations with a complex romance, but personally it failed on both fronts.

the politics was boring, a lot of one person saying a fact and then another person responding. lots of telling. the battle scenes were not interesting to me but that may be because i'm not a huge fan of written space opera or because it was just confusing and straight up bad. the adults acted like the teenagers just a little bit more uptight. they all simply fell into adult tropes - passive spouse, megalomaniac dictator, vengeful soldier, etc.

one character that seemed to have lots of potential was iva, the umber empress. she had a complicated backstory and she seemed to genuinely love her husband and vice versa. we get a glimpse of how her past shaped her to necessarily become empress. but through the eyes of her son, all we see is that she's bloodthirsty (repeated SO MANY TIMES) and that she's just a one-dimensional supervillain intent on killing everyone. to be perfectly honest, i liked iva. i wanted her to win.

now for the romance. the only angst i ever read was the last couple chapters of book 1 and the first chapters of book 2. this series is set up as an impossible romance from two opposing empires and they'll have to do the impossible to ever be happy together! but every single instance where ettian or gal could betray each other and choose their fate over love, they chose love. it's a very personal complaint since i know the majority would rather them chose love over their fate but at least i would have liked more betrayal and conflict between them. they were just so mind-numbingly in love with each other it made them intensely boring.

my personal ideal ending would be gal accepting his evil side, teaming up with his mother, crushing his romantic feelings, and attempting to destroy ettian. i wanted this to happen especially after ettian revealed his background, forced gal to kneel before him, and kept him imprisoned and humiliated. on the other hand, i wanted ettian to also crush his romantic feelings, take responsibility seriously, and absolutely destroy umber and gal with it. the perfect ending would be gal's death at ettian's hands or at least his lifelong imprisonment, defeated and humiliated. (so maybe he's obnoxiously arrogant and i just want to see him like that oops)

but no.

Spoiler

instead we had them ditiching their responsibilities and running away together. it's giving me very [b:The Electric Heir|45439783|The Electric Heir (Feverwake, #2)|Victoria Lee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565084824l/45439783._SY75_.jpg|62682428] vibes. i probably wouldn't have minded this ending if they had just suffered more in the series.

another issue i see other reviews addressing is how skrutskie portrayed the dismantling of an empire. yes, she had great ideas, but the execution cannot be that simple. i'm no expert on political structures but i can vaguely see the issues with presenting it in this way. maybe i missed it but whatever happened to the umber empire after the ending? the economic results of a galatic war? the population unrest? who knows? doesn't matter since gal and ettian are happy right?

the star of the book and this whole series is wen. my girl is killing it. she does NOT let personal feelings disrupt her plans. in fact, she manipulates those personal feelings to achieve her goals. my favorite part is this book is when ettian is acting all hurt and wonders if he truly knows her. like my guy you've known her for about a year. she's been doing whatever it takes to survive for her whole life. yes, she had friends she deeply cares for but she will definitely run over your feelings to get what she wants. such competency that gal or ettian could never achieve.

i also enjoy hanji due to her added footnotes in gal's letter. did i want her to betray gal? maybe. maybe.

the series started out mid but plummeted into the depths of depair. it wasn't even that bad. i just had unrealistic expectations. that's on me.

mallorypen's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What. A. RIDE! This series was so much fun, and this last book of the trilogy was a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat conclusion to a fantastic work of storytelling.

The balance between the romantic and political plot lines was incredible; the Yearning™️ between Gal and Ettian was exquisite; the platonic soulmate relationship between Ettian and Wen was as devastating as it was sweet.

My favorite part of this book in particular was how the author wrote the action for the battles. Battle scenes have the tendency to drag if not done impeccably well, and these were IMPECCABLE. I was fully immersed in the danger and fast decision making, and I probably did a little speeding in response to the dramatic space battles playing on the speakers of my car.

I also appreciated how no character went underutilized. From the general, the commodore, the Wraiths, the empress, etc, everyone was given time to develop throughout the series and were given their right moment to shine.

In terms of story arc, I was overall incredibly impressed by the twists and schemes of the characters. I was able to follow along, but I wasn’t able to guess every plot point before it happened. The characters making the plots were fallible and human, and that was reflected well without making the plot sluggish or confusing.

That said, the last few chapters were missing some of the brilliance of the rest of the schemes. Hanji and Wen walking through the plans in the last two chapters felt too heavy on exposition and too light on trusting the reader to take everything they’ve already learned and apply those expectations to the current situation. Wen stuffing Gal’s supposedly dead body into a spacesuit and saying “go get him, babe” while shoving him out of an airlock is a pretty straightforward tip off. All the setup of how bloodright rule was fundamentally broken and irreparable under the current structure and leadership had already filled in the gaps for me as to why Gal and Ettian couldn’t remain in positions of leadership.

Overall, what a freaking treat of a space opera. I definitely bought the hard copies before I even finished this last book.

Content Warnings