bzliz's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I’m actually sad it took me so long to invest myself in this world because Sabaa Tahir is masterful at picking up plotlines laid throughout the rest of the series and giving them real stakes with incredibly complex characters who are very comfortable in their murky gray morality. There’s great payoff without making readers feel like they were purposely led astray with red herrings.
Tahir’s female characters in particular show incredible growth and weave together strength with emotion. Laia’s story embodies the value of empathy and the final scene with Keris is utterly heartbreaking and shows that we as people can suffer greatly and it is our response to that suffering that shapes our future. Helene’s journey is my favorite. She began the series as the token girl having to fight twice as hard as the guys to command respect while nursing feelings for the main male character and being taught those feelings make her weak. She makes mistakes and does horrible things (and has horrible things happen to her) but she learns and grows as she unlearns the awful values passed on by previous generations of the Empire.
There are some heartbreaking character deaths that make sense because of the brutal nature of this world and the Nightbringer’s plan, though that doesn’t make them hurt less. Without them, the story would have felt unbalanced and our main characters need that grief to become the people they’re meant to be.
I cannot recommend this series highly enough! But mind the content warnings if you are sensitive to specific topics.
Content warnings:
Blood, body horror, death, gore, injury, murder, violence, war (on page):
Death of parent (on page, flashback):
Domestic abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse (on page):
Fire/fire injury (on page):
Classism (on page):
Medical content, pregnancy (on page):
Slavery (on page):
Sexism (on page):
Sexual content (on page):
Tahir’s female characters in particular show incredible growth and weave together strength with emotion. Laia’s story embodies the value of empathy and the final scene with Keris is utterly heartbreaking and shows that we as people can suffer greatly and it is our response to that suffering that shapes our future. Helene’s journey is my favorite. She began the series as the token girl having to fight twice as hard as the guys to command respect while nursing feelings for the main male character and being taught those feelings make her weak. She makes mistakes and does horrible things (and has horrible things happen to her) but she learns and grows as she unlearns the awful values passed on by previous generations of the Empire.
There are some heartbreaking character deaths that make sense because of the brutal nature of this world and the Nightbringer’s plan, though that doesn’t make them hurt less. Without them, the story would have felt unbalanced and our main characters need that grief to become the people they’re meant to be.
I cannot recommend this series highly enough! But mind the content warnings if you are sensitive to specific topics.
Content warnings:
Blood, body horror, death, gore, injury, murder, violence, war (on page):
Spoiler
this is a story of war between human factions plus humans against magical beings. I don’t recommend this if you cannot stomach violence because it is graphic and prevalent.Death of parent (on page, flashback):
Spoiler
Laia learns her mother is still alive and sees how her father and sister really died.Domestic abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse (on page):
Spoiler
Marcus abuses his wife including while she is pregnant in order to emotionally manipulate Helene who is forced to endure her sister’s torment.Fire/fire injury (on page):
Spoiler
The Jinn burn down a library containing information Laia needs and she is nearly trapped inside.Classism (on page):
Spoiler
The aristocrats of the Empire actively look down on and rebel against Marcus because he is of a lower class than them.Medical content, pregnancy (on page):
Spoiler
Medical content in the form of healing from battlefield injuries & pregnancy content. Livia is pregnant with Marcus’ heir and she experiences some complications including attempts at forcing a miscarriage. Laia delivers her baby during a battle.Slavery (on page):
Spoiler
Scholars have long been enslaved by the Martials. Keris keeps slaves as she attempts her coup. Livia as Empress Regent frees the Scholars.Sexism (on page):
Spoiler
Enemies actively look down on Helene for being a woman. Martial aristocrats do the same before being put in their places.Sexual content (on page):
Spoiler
Consensual encounters between Helene & Avitas and between Laia & Elias. Generally non-graphic and centered on the emotional connection rather than the act itself.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Blood, Murder, Violence, War, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Classism
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Sexism, Medical content, Classism, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Slavery
esconce's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
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
AHHH I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. Its such a good conclusion and though I hate final books this one makes it seem so amazing.. especially with the final Laia POV and its just EEEEE. The Nightbringer POV also really just ads depth to the whole situation. There were really good plot twists and it was just a very fitting ending to one of my favorite book series ever.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Child death, Bullying, Blood, Death, War, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Dementia, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Sexism, Grief, Violence, Slavery, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
madamenovelist's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Sexual violence, War, Violence, Xenophobia, Slavery, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Medical content, Murder, Colonisation, Gore, Body horror, Blood, Grief, and Child death
kriti's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Colonisation, Death, Murder, War, Violence, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Slavery
redhothabanero's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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
4.0
This one was the weakest out of the four for me. I felt like it dragged on too much and the death of felt unnecessary. Like let my girl be happy, she deserves it! Also the un-death of Lastly, the death we were all waiting for after four books of hearing how absolutely EVIL she was felt unsatisfactory. If you're gonna give us her causing countless deaths, including children then she shouldn't get a quick death.
Spoiler
Avitas HarperSpoiler
cook was out of nowhere and felt cheap. Like we just need somebody to take over Elias' job so here she is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Death, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Grief and Slavery
leaflit's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Child death, Grief, Death of parent, War, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Classism, and Death
Moderate: Slavery, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Sexual content
sophiesmallhands's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Gore, War, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder
Minor: Slavery
xta_07's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Death, and Slavery
Minor: Sexual content
booksthatburn's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This is a mediocre conclusion to what promised to be a great series. It long, slow, and boring, with repetitive angst and worry from characters who keep choosing to delay happiness on offer until right before it gets taken away. This then makes them feel like any happiness they do get will be temporary, and then they delay longer the next time. Once or twice was interesting, but it happens over and over to the point of being predictable. The only couple who actually get a happy ending is one where one of them has technically already died. The Nightbringer was way more interesting as Keenan, and I kind of wish that they had either been two different characters, or that the series had waited longer to reveal his real identity. Being an enemy who's over a thousand years old doesn't actually have to remove a character from being in the running in a love triangle (as most vampire books can attest), but this series seems to have resolved its various relationships by killing off family, friends, partners, and potential love interests seemingly at random. I have no problem with books killing off characters, but the way their vibrancy and uniqueness was bled away before most of the deaths contributed to the dull feeling of this whole book.
I like Elias/The Soul Catcher as a character, and he does the best he can with his magically-induced memory loss. I don't like how that memory loss comes in and out on the whims of a different supernatural being, as it takes coincidence and turns it into something that's explicitly another character's decision to take away Elias's choices and leave him with the Soul Catcher's cold resolve.
It doesn't feel like Laia learned anything, she grows the least of any of the characters and I found her chapters to be very frustrating. Helene adapts to her situation and changes much more, but her character growth tended to come a hair too late to save the ones she loves.
Throughout the series, The Nightbringer is turned from this intense rebel as Keenan into this angry being who can't be reasoned with and doesn't seem to have retained any of the lessons he had the opportunity to learn as Keenan. Laia hangs on to the memory of him, and that serves to hold her back rather than to build the Nightbringer as a villain. He and the Commandant get specifically turned into understandable people by the end in ways that feel way too timely and convenient.
Most of the new worldbuilding is related to the mysterious Storm, but even that was more confusing than interesting. It takes so long to get any new details that by the time I got answers I'd lost most of my interest in the questions. Reading this series is a slow slide from a really intriguing start into a bunch of angst, wishing, and churning the same regrets over and over. It feels like a huge chunk of the third book should have been excised, as well as a bunch of this one, and combined the remaining portions of both books to make this a trilogy rather than a quartet. Collectively, they're padded with indecision, people refusing to help, Elias and Laia worrying about the same things over and over again, and people waiting for other things to get worse before they can do anything. A bunch of characters have information but are either barred from conveying it or just refuse to do so for unexplained reasons. A lot of the momentum is lost by Elias losing his memory and getting access to bits of it again. War is often boredom punctuated by death and terror, but I wasn't expecting 80% of the book to be boring to match it. I only made it through as an audiobook because I could zone out occasionally but still get through it. As much as I loved the first two books, by the time I was a third of the way through this one I just wanted it to be over.
There’s also an instance where a character who died in the third book turns out to be alive and plays a key role in the final big battle. They come out of nowhere, and feels so out of place that other characters question them to try and understand how they’re actually alive. They show up at exactly the right time to do one more thing, and then their presence is the solution to another problem (but they could still have been the solution if they had actually died when originally thought).
The audiobook narrators did a great job with this whole series, they made this boring and seemingly endless story bearable.
As the final book in the series, this wrapped up hanging threads from the previous books, but it tended to do so by killing off interesting characters once they'd been reduced to having no characterization beyond being an ally, family member, or potential love interest to the main characters. This tried to have a new storyline with the Storm and the reveal of the Nightbringer's big plan, but his big plan isn't very detailed and mostly is a roundabout way of burning the world down. Technically this resolves the question of whether Laia and Elias will end up together, but they spent so little time actually building a relationship that even that feels lackluster. Character memory loss doesn't have to steal opportunities for relationships! But pairing that memory loss with a "no attachments, no emotions" persona just wrecked their chemistry for me, since Laia spent a while with no reason to believe that Elias would return to himself or remember her in a meaningful way, or that he could even return to humanity and leave his duties if he did. It's a book, so of course her pining happens to work out, but I don't like how that was handled.
The point-of-view characters from the previous book all returned here, plus a brief view from the Commandant which felt very unnecessary. Elias and the Soul Catcher didn't feel very different, except in what they were willing/able to discuss. The Nightbringer sounds like he did in his brief narration from the previous book, but he feels very different from himself as Keenan.
It would not make sense to start here. It's a very long wrap-up of better stories begun elsewhere, and can't stand on its own.
I don't have a great sense of the plot. They need to figure out the Nightbringer's plan and figure out how to stop him and the Commandant, and they manage to get that information somehow out of beings who knew it but either couldn't or wouldn't give it earlier. All of this takes way too long. For an ending I endured so much book to receive, it resolved so neatly as to feel cheap, which is not how I want to feel about these characters.
I like Elias/The Soul Catcher as a character, and he does the best he can with his magically-induced memory loss. I don't like how that memory loss comes in and out on the whims of a different supernatural being, as it takes coincidence and turns it into something that's explicitly another character's decision to take away Elias's choices and leave him with the Soul Catcher's cold resolve.
It doesn't feel like Laia learned anything, she grows the least of any of the characters and I found her chapters to be very frustrating. Helene adapts to her situation and changes much more, but her character growth tended to come a hair too late to save the ones she loves.
Throughout the series, The Nightbringer is turned from this intense rebel as Keenan into this angry being who can't be reasoned with and doesn't seem to have retained any of the lessons he had the opportunity to learn as Keenan. Laia hangs on to the memory of him, and that serves to hold her back rather than to build the Nightbringer as a villain. He and the Commandant get specifically turned into understandable people by the end in ways that feel way too timely and convenient.
Most of the new worldbuilding is related to the mysterious Storm, but even that was more confusing than interesting. It takes so long to get any new details that by the time I got answers I'd lost most of my interest in the questions. Reading this series is a slow slide from a really intriguing start into a bunch of angst, wishing, and churning the same regrets over and over. It feels like a huge chunk of the third book should have been excised, as well as a bunch of this one, and combined the remaining portions of both books to make this a trilogy rather than a quartet. Collectively, they're padded with indecision, people refusing to help, Elias and Laia worrying about the same things over and over again, and people waiting for other things to get worse before they can do anything. A bunch of characters have information but are either barred from conveying it or just refuse to do so for unexplained reasons. A lot of the momentum is lost by Elias losing his memory and getting access to bits of it again. War is often boredom punctuated by death and terror, but I wasn't expecting 80% of the book to be boring to match it. I only made it through as an audiobook because I could zone out occasionally but still get through it. As much as I loved the first two books, by the time I was a third of the way through this one I just wanted it to be over.
There’s also an instance where a character who died in the third book turns out to be alive and plays a key role in the final big battle. They come out of nowhere, and feels so out of place that other characters question them to try and understand how they’re actually alive. They show up at exactly the right time to do one more thing, and then their presence is the solution to another problem (but they could still have been the solution if they had actually died when originally thought).
The audiobook narrators did a great job with this whole series, they made this boring and seemingly endless story bearable.
As the final book in the series, this wrapped up hanging threads from the previous books, but it tended to do so by killing off interesting characters once they'd been reduced to having no characterization beyond being an ally, family member, or potential love interest to the main characters. This tried to have a new storyline with the Storm and the reveal of the Nightbringer's big plan, but his big plan isn't very detailed and mostly is a roundabout way of burning the world down. Technically this resolves the question of whether Laia and Elias will end up together, but they spent so little time actually building a relationship that even that feels lackluster. Character memory loss doesn't have to steal opportunities for relationships! But pairing that memory loss with a "no attachments, no emotions" persona just wrecked their chemistry for me, since Laia spent a while with no reason to believe that Elias would return to himself or remember her in a meaningful way, or that he could even return to humanity and leave his duties if he did. It's a book, so of course her pining happens to work out, but I don't like how that was handled.
The point-of-view characters from the previous book all returned here, plus a brief view from the Commandant which felt very unnecessary. Elias and the Soul Catcher didn't feel very different, except in what they were willing/able to discuss. The Nightbringer sounds like he did in his brief narration from the previous book, but he feels very different from himself as Keenan.
It would not make sense to start here. It's a very long wrap-up of better stories begun elsewhere, and can't stand on its own.
I don't have a great sense of the plot. They need to figure out the Nightbringer's plan and figure out how to stop him and the Commandant, and they manage to get that information somehow out of beings who knew it but either couldn't or wouldn't give it earlier. All of this takes way too long. For an ending I endured so much book to receive, it resolved so neatly as to feel cheap, which is not how I want to feel about these characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Child death and Sexual content
Minor: Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Slavery, Self harm, and Death of parent
angstifies's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
i’ve had a weird relationship with this whole series, the first book was enjoyable, the second book left me very disappointed and bored, and i didn’t care enough to pay much attention to the third book, so at this point i just wanted to be done with this series.
in book 3 i noticed that Elias’ chapters were so useless to the story so i literally skipped all his chapters, this won’t effect your knowledge of the book at all because he’s that unneeded. Laia was as annoying as ever, she just got even more special and kept being stupid. and a Helene, the only character i somewhat liked in this series, didn’t feel much like Helene. i saw a review of someone saying that they could not tell if they were reading a chapter from Laila or Helene’s POV and that’s exactly how i felt.
many things here didn’t make much sense,
Helene and Laia absolutely loving each other and Laia turning in this super skilled Mary Sue was so irritating, rolled my eyes a lot.
i knew how this book was gonna end before even starting it because it was THAT predictable but the kind of “happy” ending will surely satisfy someone who loved this series. i, however, did not.
in book 3 i noticed that Elias’ chapters were so useless to the story so i literally skipped all his chapters, this won’t effect your knowledge of the book at all because he’s that unneeded. Laia was as annoying as ever, she just got even more special and kept being stupid. and a Helene, the only character i somewhat liked in this series, didn’t feel much like Helene. i saw a review of someone saying that they could not tell if they were reading a chapter from Laila or Helene’s POV and that’s exactly how i felt.
many things here didn’t make much sense,
Spoiler
it bugs me how unnecessary it was to kill Harper and Livia, it’s almost like the author does it only to be quirky and say “killing your faves lol” as some kind of millennial-author-humor but it just looks like lazy writing and it was clearly pointless. Helene could’ve perfectly become Empress even if Livia and Harper were still alive so… why? the way Keris died and the last battle was pretty bad, not gonna go deep into that because i don’t want to.Helene and Laia absolutely loving each other and Laia turning in this super skilled Mary Sue was so irritating, rolled my eyes a lot.
i knew how this book was gonna end before even starting it because it was THAT predictable but the kind of “happy” ending will surely satisfy someone who loved this series. i, however, did not.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Slavery, Grief, and Sexual content
Minor: Sexism, Misogyny, and Pregnancy