This series has turned into such a guilty pleasure of mine and it makes for some great background "reading" while doing other tasks like driving, working, or doing household chores. I feel like this book was by far the best one from the ones I've listened to, it felt like the whole story was well composed (as best as possible for some fun trashy paranormal romances) and it did keep me guessing throughout while listening.

There were a few things that kept this from being higher rated: First I felt like the "Lessers" dynamic of power and changing roles just was too much. It could have been better if it followed just the one main instead of hopping around that the leader positions were taken and switched and all that nonsense. It felt like it wasn't really needed in this story and didn't really help with the main tension. Next was the very dated language and brands inserted here. It really pinpoints the time frame of the novel; brands like Nokia and phrases like "don't be a sissy" just top off that true early 2000s/late 90s vibe. And last was the weird approach to queerness; again I know this was at a time before it was socially acceptable but strange to put "I don't care if you are" and then also that you started treating them slightly different because of suspected gay/bi.

The last thing was really irritated me was that Bella was so oblivious to Zsadist's actions and near the end we had lots of repeated moments. Like they had already discussed that they care and love for each other then after they have been separated for like 3 months they make this big proclamation of love and everyone involved acts so shocked and as if this brand new information when they had already said it.

EVEN with all of these things as issues it still ranks highly for me because I think it was the PERFECT example of bad guy/high society dynamic I have seen in a very long time.

I honestly wish there was a rating between 2.5 and 2.75 for this book. While I had more fun reading this than I thought that I would and it actually blew me away with how easy it was to read there were still some faults with it. This was basically X-Men fanfic yet I'm kinda here for it?

I can 100% see where this has it's place in the YA space, the main character is basically the most sought after person in this area with at least 3 separate groups/people trying to find her; two of which are huge factions in this dystopian war. In addition this, it was very insta-love with Juliette and Adam really only speaking for about a month after being apart for 3 years. Especially since this book is a huge series their love could have been drawn out a little more. I also felt like Warner was very one note, yes he's bad and does terrible things but we don't really get much build into who he is as a character which left me wanting. I'm also very conflicted because even with Adam being at least more complex than Warner some of that too was me as a reader filling in things that weren't even in the story to try to guess or get a feel of what could possibly happen instead of what actually happens on page.

My final critique is that we really don't get much world building for this being a starting novel. It's left very vague of "the world started changing and now The Reestablishment has come in and made things terrible" without getting much info. Also the writing style took me a little to get used to, it's very repetitive in it's scene and plot points (we literally had like 3 fully clothed shower scenes all within a 60 page span it felt like). I'm trying to have more grace on a few things since yes there was inconsistencies but since it's being told from Juliette's POV and she's fractured might lend to some of that mismatch and less on the author not really creating a well built story. I'm bumping up to a 2.75 star since I had a good time with this and willing to overlook some of the messy build of this all while recognizing why it has such a strong fan following.