Well I am done

Honestly I stuck with these books cause I wanted to know how this ended. And I suspect I had hope that they would either get better or finally end. But I doubt I will read the next one. My frustration with the lack of movement of the story forward or actual character development has me annoyed.


Spoilers ahead-
But frankly you really only need to read maybe the first quarter to a third and the last third to a quarter. I would say a third to half the book is filler. And my annoyance with Cassia has reached epic proportions at this point. For every step forward she takes, she then takes about 30 backward, it feels like. And all the back and forth just felt like it was an attempt to up the page count. It didn't flesh out the story or add anything particularly relevatory for the story. And it is the same issue that has come up in just about every damn book. Cassia is her same stubborn self trying to run away from reality all while saying she wants to face it. That she really does trust and love Lio.... oh wait she knows better than everyone else.....oops please forgive me Lio I created a mountain out of a mole hill again and I was wrong.

Frankly it is starting to feel like the Harry Potter novels, which I barely made it through the last 3 cause there were entire portions, especially the last book in the series, that were just filler. They didn't progress the story or show actual character growth it was just to make it more wordy. I suppose we should be glad the author didn't make us sit through more of the inane stuff on all days she doesn't tell us what they are doing and skips forward to another day.

But the whole "wedding" where it appears Cassia has finally gotten over herself and moved on, then dumba$$ Mak and trying to infuse spell magic on weapons they aren't allowed to have in orthos in orthos!?! Why did any of them think this was a good idea? Best and brightest my a$$. They couldn't have waited till they arrived in tenebra to give them weapons they could only use in tenebra? So now Cassia once again throws herself under the bus and they will have to face off against all of Orthos and be isolated without help. Dun dun dunh. Oh no whatever shall they do!!!

I realize the author wanted these 4 off on their own and add the same damn drama over again. Will they ever be able to be together, free of the world, and in Orthos?!?! This has been the constant theme for pretty much the entire 8, let me repeat 8, freaking books before this one. And the answer appears to be no. Other than learning what the old master actually wants in the last chapter of the book and Cassia getting her plant magic back there is little point in reading the rest of the book.

So my suggestion save yourself the time and just read the end of the book. That will probably be what I do if and when the 9th book comes out, though suspect that the 9th won't be the last. I think the author is going to beat this dead horse into an unrecognizable puddle of goo. She has a formula and she is gonna stick with it right to the end.