I finally made it... for this. It was an okay conclusion, but I'm over it.
Summary:
Once Red then Gold and now exposed, Darrow escapes his captors after a year only to find his rebellion on the ropes. Sevro and the Sons of Ares are rallying their side as quickly as they're burning it down, and Mustang is on the other side of the galaxy unawares. Now it's up to Darrow to route his force in the right direction and take down Octavia au Lune, the Society's hierarchy, and the psychotic Jackal.
Verdict: 4/10
Well, it was a long and arduous journey to finish this one. It exceeded my expectations... because my expectations were very low. I had to force myself just to start it, which usually means you're already not going to like it. Once they landed in icy Obsidian territory (about 200 pages in), I was flying through it again. Only to lag again towards the end. What should have been the climax of the series had me yawning and putting my copy down every 20 pages.
This series just wasn't meant for me. Fighting for survival amongst cannibals in polar storms and trying to convert a warring, superstitious race to join a cause - now that's gripping! Unfortunately, that's only 100 pages out of 500. The rest of seeing this ship fight that ship or hearing the political debates of characters I don't much care for anymore is personally just not interesting.
To be fair, I don't think it's the author's fault. The book is well-written, and others will probably enjoy it. Like I said before (see reviews on Red Rising and Golden Son), I'm not interested in intergalactic warfare. And all of my favorite characters died already or had betrayed Darrow at least once or twice, so there was no one left to like or trust, including the main character. I respect the character choices as all deaths/backstabbings were for the plot, emotional development, etc., but it takes the emotional stake out of it for me, which was all I had left for this series.
Also I thought it was highly predictable in its attempted unpredictability. It's like in a mystery where there's one level of the most suspected person, a second level of the least suspected person, and a third of the real killer/the middle suspected person (yes, I got that from The Office). Brown tries to throw in "major plot twists" but they just feel forced. You can only have someone betray you so many times before the reader is bored by it. And SPOILER ALERT, you can only have a surprise secret pregnancy reveal happen once. It wasn't needed, didn't add up, and was saved for the last 5 pages. (SPOILER DONE)
So yeah, this book was very meh. I thoroughly enjoyed parts of it and was unimpressed by the rest. All in all, I'm more happy to be done with it.
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