go queen! give us nothing! i'm mad i didn't make that joke in my goodreads review (i'm gonna change it now just u wait). watch me go and read all the one-star reviews for this book and The Wicked King on goodreads. i just cannot fathom how the first book was an absolute gem and the other two turned out to be poop. the worldbuilding from the first book doesn't even stretch to the rest of the installments. i will give this book the concession that jude was at least an active participant in the plot and was actually doing SOMETHING (unlike the second book...) but after the first half it becomes so terribly BORING. and not to mention that the entire selling point of this trilogy is jude and cardan's relationship and yet, they have MINISCULE emotional development. like i kid u not, after the first book, THERE WAS NO EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE TWO TO WARRANT THEM BEING IN LOVE THIS WAY, AND EVEN MORE FOR JUDE TO FORGIVE HIM SO EASILY AFTER THAT ASSHOLE MANOUVRE HE PULLED AT THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK. it's basically character assassination for jude to not hold a grudge and forgive both cardan AND taryn so easily. just like that?? after they both betrayed and stabbed u in the back in major ways? it pissed me off so bad bro bol nhi skte. no justice at all. the narrative just expects us to automatically forget taryn and cardan's blunders AND NO WE WILL NOT. i don't give a flying fuck that cardan was an abused and stunted child, HE STILL DID WHAT HE DID. and jude and cardan's relationship reads too much like lusty love for me to care. like i kid u not i felt like jude was getting the feyre from acotar treatment in this book in some ways. and that battle sequence at the end was so ass. so what if jude was disassociating? there were better ways to write that. and cardan emerging from the corpse of the snake like he was a titan-shifter made me roll my eyes. IN FACT, him turning into a snake AT ALL was just so ridiculous. the political intrigue just morphed into an absurdist clown show by the end. there are stupid decisions made. grima mog the cannibal granny was a g so i liked her. we got a glimpse of oak and his love interest in this book too but i'm not sure if i want to read that duology yet, if ever. anyways, this was mid bullshit. first book was the best book.
