Princess Eva Rose

I dunno what it is but all this YA series that I used to like are just disappointing me in the series finale.

Book three review

I loved the first two books in this trilogy but the third one was just one long pity party. Everyone, absolutely everyone, turned into a emo whiny bitch who made crazy choicest. These where not the characters that I read about in previous books, folks. I read about hard, cold characters who wanted to survive, who fought to do what was right even in the face of impossible odds.

Allie did a huge one eighty on me and I wasn't very happy because it just went against her previous character growth. The Allie that I loved was a strong girl who faced down the adversities of life with unflinching strength and a backbone of steel. In this one Allie became a emo whiner who made the stupidest of choicest, its like her brain was flushed out of her skull.

What happened with—” my mind recoiled from his name “— with that human—that was stupid and wrong and eventually, I would’ve killed him. It was... better... that he died.”

This is Allie constantly throughout the book, she whines and whines and cries, her angsting is over the top and it totally took away from the main plot.

I liked Jackal but his nastiness soon became too much and he just wasn't as enjoyable as he had been in book 2 and he hardly contributed to the main plot at all. Zeke predictably comes back as a vamp and he is so very different  from the sweet natured boy with a machete from the previous books. Before, when he had been the perfect balanced for Allie, he now became a demon just like her and it took away from their previous relationship dynamics because now instead of one cold demon we had two. He also frequently breaks down in whining and crying. I just didn't agree one bit with him turning into a vamp, it went against all his wishes to die as a human and to preserve his moral fibre. And the worst thing about this is that this latest development in Zeke's character came at the very end when it couldn't be properly explore or develop satisfactorily.

Kanin became this empty, dark shadow that barely, if at all, contributed to the story and then died in the stupidest way. He was the last character that needed killing, especially when the cure was in him, it should have been his miserable life mission to bring the cure to every human settlement in the world and to get rid of every single rabid, instead he ups and dies leaving his mess to be cleaned up by Allison. Kanin, that was irresponsible of you and I didn't want to believe that you would take the easy way out of the mess you created. 

The ending was a mess of "what the flying fuck" moments and "how the fuck did Sarren know enough to plan ahead without the Kagawa dropping the ball." There where tons of lazy and predictable moments, like when Kanin explains to Allison that Zeke has been brainwashed by Sarren and then she breaks him out of the compulsion through the power of love after a bloody confrontation.

Seriously, how many books are out there that follow the same tire trope?

Then Sarren, somehow, knows that Zeke broke out of the compulsion. How? Don't ask me, it is never explained satisfactorily and the reader is forced to draw up conclusions. Anyway, Sarren knowing Zeke is free of the mind control leads them through clues to a town and a house where he killed a bunch of people, nail them to the wall and left a message to mind fuck Zeke with and predictably Zeke starts banging his head and having a meltdown.

There is also this other scene that didn't make an ounce of sense and it is when Sarren kidnaps Bethany and Caleb then drops them in lake Erie to distract Zeke and mindfuck Allison. The one huge flaw here is how the hell did he know about this kids? According to the narrative Sarren never met or heard about this children so this is an obvious ploy from the author to get Zeke out of the main action which was a bad move, everyone should have been there to take Sarren down. Also, we never see Sarren until the very end and confrontation sucks donkey balls. The ending as a whole was deeply disappointing because I was expecting more and instead I got this emo fest. 

Series overview

So, is this series worth the read?

I deeply enjoyed the first two books but even I must admit that it was predictable and didn't add much to the genre. The one big thing about this series is the world building at which Kagawa excelled at, it was bleak and dark and the violence was brutal and gory. However the characters in this last book really sank it for me. I am of the opinion that the ending is more important than the beginning when it comes to a series and unfortunately this last book didn't reach the heights I was expecting.