I'm overall disappointed with this book. I find the title to be very misleading. I thought it was going to be a lot more scientific and or philosophical. On both fronts it offered a few tidbits throughout and that was all. It was really more a memior of a woman who enjoys octopuses. The first chapter was interesting and then it went downhill from there. Too much time was spent discussing the aquarium renovation and learning to scuba dive. Pretty dull for a memoir. This book was fairly short but took me much longer than expected to get through because I just wasn't interested in getting back to it.

2 stars

Did I just binge the whole series to get to this final novel? Yes. Am I thrilled I wasted so many hours doing so? No. Not in the slightest.

I don't know what I was entirely expecting, but it wasn't this. I had hoped for more - considering both Suze and Jesse are adults and have been together for some time now. Instead, this book was a mockery of what love truly is.

I get it. This world was built on ghostly adventures, and the teenager in me who once swooned over this world must have love all those elements. And on all my previous reviews of this world, I've pointed out enough how I don't feel there was enough character development for any of the relationships.

Suze, as an adult, is still very much so the ego-centric, judgmental and entitled whinge as she was in the previous high-school bound novels in this world. I had hoped for some character growth, but she's still claiming to have amazing boobs and hair or other elements of self-assurance that border on unattractive cockiness. It is cringe-worthy how vapid she comes across. I had hoped for more insight to her relationship with Jesse, but it was still much the same - spent whining that he wouldn't put out before marriage because of his old-fashioned morals one moment, and then defending his old-fashioned ways to anyone who questioned it. Again, I couldn't grasp a feel for the genuine love she had for Jesse, aside from her saying it was there. The sheer amount of secrecy, backstabbing (to protect said love) and all the nonsense I just endured has left me stunned. That isn't what a healthy relationship should look like.

I also have a huge issue with Paul being used in this world. How, after 6 years, had he been left to fester in the way he was painted? Sure, a guy can still love someone. But it was extremely toxic, and ironically with Suze being a counsellor in training, the psychological aspects of the mains still being in this messy love-triangle - Jesse and Suze are engaged, for goodness sakes! - really annoyed me. Paul deserved a character arc if he was going to become a main character again. And the sloppy "redemption" he presented in the end was mediocre at best.

I was impressed for one character - Brad. After spending so many hours reading the previous books and how he was as ridiculous as his nickname Dopey suggested, seeing him as a married man and doting on his triplet girls was endearing.

I also found the "romance" really cheap. So much was spent on crude conversational pieces and a bit of kissing. And the couple of sex scenes didn't even amount to much. Perhaps this was because a lot of people who would start this story now would be younger and it would be PC enough for them to read a book about adults without it having any real substance. But the more I think about this, the more I feel as if the romance still remained very juvenile and am unsatisfied that after it being spoken of as a true love story, that I didn't feel that way at all. It was told rather than shown, and to accept that without enough solid evidence of their relationship. There were tidbits, but it really wasn't enough.

I found the ghostly plotline to be repetitive and with Paul's addition to it over the threat of a curse on Jesse in the beginning, when the ghostly element took 60% of the novel to complete, I was really disappointed. There was a real opportunity there for a darker storyline with the curse explored. I would have appreciated it more than a few threats, an assault, and then the smoothed over conclusion of what Paul even set out to do.

I could continue to rant, but because I'm not normally one to share such a negative review, I'm going to end here. The teenager in me who worshipped this world is really disappointed that I chose to revisit and thus ruin the illusion that had been there all these years.