have thrown my Kindle out after the first 10 chapters (yes my entire Kindle.) If you have read my reviews on the last three books, you will know that I have had a very rocky relationship with this series since the beginning. Yet, I pushed through, hoping against hope that it would pay off. I think the worst part is that Kings Cage actually gave me some hope, I really genuinely started to enjoy it, and now I understand why.

 

MAVEN. Maven was the reason I liked Kings Cage and that alone (except for the fight scene at the wedding.) I literally don’t care about anything else, not a single character I gave a shit about, except for MAVEN! He is so well-written, and it is a crime that we did not get to see as much of him in this book because he is genuinely interesting and has depth to him. 

 

I would have never guessed it, but I actually felt sympathy for him and understood what the author was trying to do with his character, unlike anyone else. His chapters, seeing things from his point of view and learning his thoughts, were by far my favorite parts of this book.

 

I think you could put a gun to my head and I couldn’t tell you the plot of this book. Yes, some of that is on me because I took over two months to read it, but the fact that I was keeping pretty detailed notes along the way and was still confused says something. Everything felt rushed and slow at the same time, with so much filler that my mind started to melt. The final battle was so lame it is unbelievable, I was at least expecting someone important to die but nope, no consequences. The way that Maven died was so unsatisfying given how much of an awesome character he was and it pissed me off so badly. 

 

Don’t even get me started on the Lakelanders. What was their purpose? Why did they exist? Are you seriously telling me the entire Lakelander army surrendered after five minutes because like 4 out of their dozens of ships went down? SPEAKING OF, anyone notice how there was zero explanation of what attacked their ships? LIKE? I actually considered Iris a semi-interesting character, but NOTHING happened with them at all. I was so unbelievably rushed which is insane because this book is 700 PAGES. 

 

The “war” that was supposed to be going on basically just came down to Mare, an unqualified random girl, leading an entire rebellion for no reason. This has been my complaint since Glass Sword and I will say it again, I do not care if she is some kind of symbol. Maybe that was important in the beginning, but at this point with the rebellion as progressed as it is, Mare is so unbelievably irrelevant in all ways. She has no common sense, no military or strategic training, and yet for some reason, she is so involved with LEADING THE REBELLION just because she was the first newblood discovered? Ok? She whines all the time about how there’s so much on her shoulders but then makes everything about herself and inserts herself in situations she has no business being in. 

 

The fact that she got angry at Cal for choosing his COUNTRY over her was actually insane. Not only did he make it super clear that’s who he was from the beginning, but you cannot be so self-centered as to think this man (who you barely even have any connection with in the beginning because their relationship was so horribly written) would choose you over his literal kingdom and the people he is responsible for. 

 

Evangeline was probably the only other saving grace in this book other than Maven. Her story was literally the only one that made sense and had a fair ending, and reading her POVs was actually interesting. The way she finally turned on her parents and went to live with Elane was actually a good satisfying ending. 

 

If this book had any chance of being semi-good, it should have been split into two. Victoria Aveyard made the mistake of shoving about 20 million characters that we are supposed to care about into each book, and then never giving any of them an actual story. Remember Cameron? Yeah, I bet you don’t because she basically doesn’t exist in this book. Because of this, the ending was so unbelievably unsatisfying. 

 

I really do understand that some stories don’t need to end with a nice little bow tied around them, and there can be things left unknown, but I have never seen a book THIS unexplained. We do not learn a single character’s fate, or how they are going to deal with the hundred other problems that still exist in the world. After this incredibly long drawn-out book, I feel like we deserved A LITTLE BIT OF A CONCLUSION. Most unsatisfying thing ever and it pissed me off so bad. 

 

Anyway, sorry for the rant, I am filled with anger over this book, and I needed to get it out lol. I know this isn’t a typical review of mine, but at least it’s honest!