A review by yvo_about_books
Vulture by Bex Hogan

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

3.25

Finished reading: August 29th 2024


“We are all just one misstep away from becoming the villain.”

I started this series early 2021, and I read the first two books in quick succession. It's true that the first book worked better for me than the sequel, but the concept itself was enough to make me want to read the third and final book. Add a pretty brutal cliffhanger, and I was pretty frustrated that the last books wasn't even published yet... And somehow by the time it was, it had already disappeared among the other books on my TBR mountain. Queue over three years later, and Vulture popped up when I was browsing books for the 'pirates' prompt of the POPSUGAR challenge. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to cross another unfinished series off my list... I probably should have realized the importancy of rereading the series before I dove into the final book though. Boy, I was LOST when I started Vulture. Basically this sequel dives straight in without any recaps nor introducing the characters in play, and I confess I had forgotten a lot about both the high fantasy world and its cast after such a long time. This of course was 100% my own mistake, but this wasn't the main reason Vulture didn't quite hit home for me. Like with the second book, Marianne was again quite frustrating and the repetition of her deciding to sacrifice herself for the greater good got old fast. Her behavior is quite distracting, and she isn't the only character that started to grate on me. As for the plot: it moves at an extremely fast pace, and in this case I'm not sure this is completely positive. You never get the chance to breathe or properly digest what just happened in the many moments of danger, and this means that the losses along the way just didn't quite hit home. The love triangle vibe was likewise quite annoying... And the final stand was a bit too rushed for me. It wasn't all bad though, as I loved the development and descriptions of the high fantasy world, and especially the magical creatures are splendid. The writing itself was beautiful even though the content was repetitive at times... I'm feeling this series would have worked a lot better as a duology, as certain parts were quite drawn out. I definitely think the first book is the strongest, but I'm still glad I read the rest of the series. 
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