Review: Finale by Becca Fitzpatrick

Book: Finale
Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Series: Hush, Hush
Publication Date: October 23rd, 2012
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: 1 Star

Will love conquer all?

Nora and Patch thought their troubles were behind them. Hank is gone and they should be able to put his ugly vendetta to rest. But in Hank's absence, Nora has become the unwitting head of the Nephilim and must finish what Hank began. Which ultimately means destroying the fallen angels - destroying Patch.

Nora will never let that happen, so she and Patch make a plan: lead everyone to believe they have broken up, and work the system from the inside. Nora will convince the Nephilim that they are making a mistake in fighting the fallen angels, and Patch will find out everything he can from the opposing side. They will end this war before it can even begin.

But the best-laid plans often go awry. Nora is put through the paces in her new role and finds herself drawn to an addictive power she never anticipated.

As the battle lines are drawn, Nora and Patch must confront the differences that have always been between them and either choose to ignore them or let them destroy the love they have always fought for.

It's been a long time since I've read a truly horrible book. The last time was Silence, I think. I just can't fathom why people would like this book. I have to admit that I didn't think it was that bad when I read Hush, Hush, or even Crescendo. Then the plot began becoming a clusterfuck of deux ex machina and random characters, and Nora continued her insufferable behavior.

Unlike many of my other wise fellow reviewers, I don't have that big of a problem with Patch. I can understand that he's a depraved character, and he should be thrown in jail for all his rapaciousness. But he doesn't manage to piss me off like Nora does, probably because I'm not following his train of thought. He's just a normal, hormonal male. Which is sexist of me, but what's there to expect when there are authors like Becca Fitzpatrick who write characters who wear all black, drive motorcycles, and kiss with "black fire"? You're just begging me to refer to men as chauvinistic pigs who only want a good lay.

So let's talk about what really pissed me off about this book, and what pissed me off in the last three books, too: Nora Grey. Exactly what sort of character development has she undergone in the past four books? She's the same, immature girl stalker as she was in the first book, except now she's controlling an army. What kind of idiot would give control of his army over to her, anyway? For all his supposed brilliance, Hank Millar wasn't very wise in naming a successor. Nora is exceedingly dull, and I didn't even realize she was a redhead until the last part of the book O.O Somehow, I missed that. Anyway, she uses everyone and is stupidly obsessed with Patch. She even pulls a Bella towards the last chapter by refusing to get out of bed and going into momentary depression because Patch is gone. And Fitzpatrick even draws from Kagawa with the whole vow thing they exchange at the end of the book, except it was way cheesier and vomit-inducing.

Also, authors, please, please stop giving your heroines/heroes a momentary bout of adrenaline that allowed them to defeat the invincible enemy just because one of his/her friends died. It worked before. It made sense in Vampire Academy. It made sense in The Mortal Instruments (I think it happened there...) But here, it was just laughable because of how utterly pathetic Nora was. Her voice was just so... immature. Her best friend, Vee, exists as a way to compare Nora's nice legs with Vee's rotundness (all those donuts that Nora likes to mention, I'd imagine), and PMS is just a way for her to excuse all bitchiness. I couldn't see how any rational human being--or supernatural creature--would ever designate Nora to any big role. She should've just been a dull, sideline character instead of the main event.

I won't even get started on the side characters. They were all almost comically evil, especially Dante. And Pepper. What kind of archangel is named Pepper? It just... Rarely do names bother me enough that I can't read the book, but this one definitely did. I kept thinking of Ms. Pepper Pots from Iron Man. And what role did the Nephilim play? They followed them brainlessly. I would've thought they'd be smarter than that. And Blakely, too... Ugh. I can't even give cohesive opinions on any of them because Nora was whoring up the big screen most of the time. They were all just conveniently there for her to order around. Also, I maintain that demoncraft is the most idiotic plot device ever invented. And now I am done. With this review, and with this entire, STUPID series. I FINISHED! What a bittersweet survival.



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Review: Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Book: Days of Blood & Starlight
Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Publication Date: November 8th, 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Rating: 4.5 Stars

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

A dream dirty and bruised is better than no dream at all.
I'm amazed how this book is so much bigger than what it is. There's something about the world that Laini Taylor has created that is so... universal. It's so difficult to explain, but while I was reading it, I literally felt like I'd entered an alternate universe that was magical but realistic. Unlike its predecessor, Days of Blood & Starlight is not centered around just a group of people or a painfully dramatic love story. It is, at its very heart, a book about war, death, and sacrifice.

At the beginning, I was agitated because Akiva and Karou were leading separate lives. I desperately wanted them to meet up and renew what they'd had, but as the book progressed, I realized that this desire wasn't realistic. The book begins with Karou as the new resurrectionist, making new bodies to resurrect the chimaera soldiers of Eretz. The White Wolf watches her constantly, and she's not happy. It starts off heavy and dark, unlike the last book, which I remember as starting off with her idiotic ex-boyfriend. Instead, there are the deaths of Brimstone and the rest of Karou's chimaera family suffocating her. Many of my fellow reviewers have expressed their surprise and apprehension at the bloodiness, but I welcomed this facet. The title has blood in it; we can't really expect flowers and rainbows.

What I really want to credit Taylor on is her perfect balance of hope and pain. I never knew how things would end, and there were always different conflicts popping up out of unexpected places after a problem was solved. It was really emotionally draining, actually. Karou is suffering at first, under the tyrannical rule of the Wolf, but then Zuzana and Mik find her and they add this beautiful atmosphere of sweet love and loyalty that I found enjoyable. Their relationship is much more fleshed out in this book, and it was realistic and adorable, which grounded the forbidden love part between Akiva and Karou. Their presence made the other chimaera seem more human, and I like that Taylor took the time to explore all these different characters and make them seem real. The book isn't told from just Karou's or Akiva's perspectives, but from the eyes of many different characters. Some of them only live for three pages before they die, but it adds a very holistic view, shedding light on what's happening in every corner of this alternate universe.

Also, like the last book, this one is not lacking in plot, especially since there are multiple plot lines running through the story. In the middle of the book, I think there are like... 10 deaths within 50 pages. Taylor brings her way with words back to this one, and everything is told in such gorgeous style. Her prose is the fairy dust on top of an already magical story. Although I'm a bit upset with how little Akiva/Karou time I got in this one, the ending was the perfect balance of desolation in hope. I am in awe.

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Review: Rapture by Lauren Kate

Book: Rapture
Author: Lauren Kate
Series: Fallen
Publication Date: June 12th, 2012
Publisher: Delacorte Press
My rating: 2 Stars

The sky is dark with wings....

Like sand through an hourglass, time is running out for Luce and Daniel. To stop Lucifer from erasing the past, they must find the place where the angels fell to earth.

Dark forces are after them, and Daniel doesn’t know if he can do this — live only to lose Luce again and again. Yet together they face an epic battle that will end with lifeless bodies...and angel dust. Great sacrifices are made. Hearts are destroyed.

And suddenly Luce knows what must happen. For she was meant to be with someone other than Daniel. The curse they’ve borne has always and only been about her — and the love she cast aside. The choice she makes now is the only one that truly matters.

In the fight for Luce, who will win?

Rapture is the astonishing conclusion to the FALLEN series. Heaven can’t wait any longer.

Not quite as bad as I expected. I'm disappointed, though. Let me tell you why.

If you're given this awesome pitch about this love that transcends time and space, that has happened over and over again and fallen apart the same way, wouldn't you be interested? I know the sappy romantic me would be. I'd heard about Fallen and its bad ratings before I read it, but there was that doubt in my mind. How bad could it be? With a plot like that...

After I read the first and second books, I got my answer.

Really, REALLY bad.

It's just... I began these books expecting this beautiful love that would make me cry, that would make me hold onto Daniel and Luce and never want them to go and always want them together and want to buy some Superglue so I could just stick them together forever.

Instead, I got a useless wimp and an emasculated, chauvinistic (how oxymoronic!) idiot.

So you can see how I'd be disappointed.

I think this could contend with Romeo & Juliet over Most Tragic Love Story That Actually Sucks.

Now, let's bring ourselves away from the series and focus on Rapture specifically.

It was actually halfway decent. I was surprised that Kate managed to tie up the loose ends that she apparently couldn't do in the third book. The third book was basically mindless fluff. I loved the time traveling, but it was pointless and didn't do anything else except further give examples of Daniel's and Luce's baseless love.

Anyway, there is stuff that happens. Angels die and there's this huge climactic moment (which isn't that climactic, really. We were all expecting it), and also a couple "big" reveals. You might be surprised, you might not. Kate has really amped up the description. I mean, she's never been that bad at it, but I really noticed it in this book. I actually quite enjoyed it, except for the parts where it got all weepy and melodramatic. I never really liked Dee. She just seemed a bit too deux ex machina for my tastes, and her dialogue was really awkward. I guess she was supposed to be a wise old owl among the little winged birdies, but she just sounded like she was pulling shit out of her ass.

I guess where this book really fails is the characterization part. Luce is as useless as ever, and I found her general limp noodle-ness, as well as her whole caring about others as an obvious attempt to cull readers' sympathy, extremely grating on my nerves.

 

Daniel, of course, it as emasculated as ever. He doesn't do anything besides fluttering around and going "Shh" whenever Luce tries to ask a question. I just don't understand why it took so long for her to figure out the truth about herself. Sure, in her past lives, she wasn't allowed, but why couldn't she know in her human one? This self-awareness thing sounds really phony to me.

Lucifer is... I don't even. Kate manages to make him sound not like the lonely, complex figure from Paradise Lost, but rather a really arrogant and hateful teenage boy. He actually says things like "Baby, that's your Achilles' heel."

What kind of evil mastermind calls people "baby"?! Or maybe they do, but they sound really sleazy and laughable in the process.

So, there's Lucifer. Then there's God. Or should I say GodDESS.

That's right. God is a woman. Kate is really having fun with this, isn't she? First Gabbe, and now God, of all people.

Let me be honest. I don't think anyone should try to portray God in a book. I'm not Christian or religious or anything, but I just find it difficult to be able to use the right words to capture the inspiration of so many religions of the world. Most authors will mess it up, and that's what happened here. Maybe it was an attempt to buoy the feminists, or she was just trying to twist things a bit, but it did nothing, especially since God didn't seem that frightening or like someone who created the universe. It just... didn't make sense. Also, there were these fluctuations in capitalization. Like sometimes God would be called You, then other times just "she" or "you." So the religious/angelology/demonology part of this book is still called into question. I guess my gif doesn't have much oomph now, if God is really the person who's portrayed in this book.

The ending was blah. It's been done before. If you've read Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn, you'd know what I'm talking about. Astonishing conclusion my ass. I care about Cam, too. What the hell happened to him? At least he had some spice to him. He appeared approximately two times before being overshadowed by Daniel again.

Ugh, Daniel. You ruin everything.

Anyhow. This series is finally over. Hopefully, Kate has learned some things.

Also, I think it would've been really funny if Luce's roommate Nora was Nora Grey from Hush, Hush. They could've shared all their issues with overprotective boyfriends and dysfunctional lives and cried together.

YAY FALLEN IS OVER LET'S ALL REJOICE.

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Review: Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins

Book: Sweet Evil 

Author: Wendy Higgins
Series: Sweet Trilogy
Publication Date: May 1st, 2012
Publisher: HarperTeen
Rating: 1 Star

Embrace the Forbidden

What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?

This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.

Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but Anna, the ultimate good girl, has always had the advantage of her angel side to balance the darkness within. It isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.

Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?

This book has everything I hate. I'm not kidding.

1. An idiotic, annoying heroine.
2. A love triangle.
3. More telling than showing.
4. Info dumps.
5. Douchebag love interest.
6. Things that happen that make no logical sense at all. 

The things I could say about this book... If you saw my comments as I read, well, you'd understand. I'm surprised this has such a high rating. Because of it, I had high expectations, and they all came crashing down the moment Anna opened her mouth and started talking about her appearance, how she was soooo plain. But I kept going, hoping that maybe Kaidan, the love interest, would redeem the story. I mean, if you're going to throw good and evil together, there should be some serious chemistry, right?

WRONG.

All Kaidan turns out to be is a knife-wielding, wannabe bad boy who lays every girl in a ten mile radius under the pretense of "working." I found his need to have sex with at least one girl every night extremely distasteful, since he wasn't being forced into it, as shown by his later ability to just drop his work whenever he chooses.

But Anna still chooses to follow him like a simpering puppy.

You know why this book is 1 star? I'll tell you why. The main character.

People expect stuff from young adult books nowadays. They expect a girl who can kick asses and take names as well as she can pull off a ballgown, who's as smart as she's pretty.

I don't expect that. Sure, it's nice, but it's becoming the norm, and I want something different. Anna could have been that, but she failed completely. Here are some quotes that show just how insufferable she is:

A vibrant energy rushed through my body as the pieces slammed into place. Oh, dear Lord. I was in love with him. And there wasn’t a thing on earth, in heaven, or in hell that could have stopped me.

Spare me. She barely knows the guy. He's the first guy she's been attracted to, and she's ready to face heaven and hell? Bella Stewart, come on down! I think we've found you a buddy.

We couldn’t just stand there loitering. I made a quick decision to trust them and hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be one of my naive moments.

So. She decides to go into the company of potentially dangerous people to avoid LOITERING? Priorities, girl. Sort them.

“Look, Jay, I’m going to be honest with you, even though it’s embarrassing. I’m one step away from stalking him.” My voice shook. “All I do is think of him. If there were no such thing as caller ID, I would call him all day just to listen to him talking on his voice mail. I’m having an extremely difficult time getting over him. If I see him again...”

DOES SHE HAVE ANY COMMON SENSE? DON'T SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

What's probably even worse is Jay's reply, which is: "'Sorry, man... It's cool.'"

But it doesn't stop there...

I dealt with the pain by shutting down. The more time asleep, the better. I missed school a few times, just to lie in bed. Failed a major test. Lost weight. But I knew time would heal the ache, and everything would be okay. I could move on. I would come back to life. Eventually. But not yet.

Remind you of anyone yet? Take the vampires and replace them with angels, and voila! You get Sweet Evil. There is nothing about this book that's interesting in the least. Not crybaby Anna and her pathetic obsession with Kaidan, who basically strings her around and gets laid every night anyway. Oh, and he also makes "masculine growing sounds" and gives her "crushing stares," not that I have any idea what any of those mean.

Not her best friend, Jay, who acts like a wannabe gangster and cheats on his somewhat-girlfriend. And not her friends, who represent sins and don't really give a crap about the chaos they induce.

There was also too much drinking and substance abuse in this for me to be okay with it. If Higgins was trying to teach us anything, it was that it's easy to get fake IDs and that drinking is totally okay as long as we know when to stop. Also, you can apparently dump illegal drugs out of your car window...

I'm pretty sure the people who know when to stop wouldn't be drinking in the first place.

The idea with the Dukes and their children was an interesting one, but Higgins has botched it in a way that's so annoyingly stereotypical that I was begging for the book to end and put me out of my misery. The writing is subpar, with words that don't really mean anything and illogical sentences that make no sense. I wouldn't have read on, but Higgins pulled a dirty trick. The relationship between Anna and Kaidan reaches no closure, and if there's one thing I can't deal with, it's unclosed relationships. So I'll be reading on. Hopefully, Anna will get over herself (not likely), and Kaidan will stop being a douche (even more unlikely).
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Review: City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

Book: City of Lost Souls
Series: The Mortal Instruments
Author: Cassandra Clare
Release Date: May 8, 2012
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Source: Library Copy
Pages: 534
My Rating: 4 stars

Goodreads Summary:
The demon Lilith has been destroyed and Jace has been freed from her captivity. But when the Shadowhunters arrive to rescue him, they find only blood and broken glass. Not only is the boy Clary loves missing–but so is the boy she hates, Sebastian, the son of her father Valentine: a son determined to succeed where their father failed, and bring the Shadowhunters to their knees.

No magic the Clave can summon can locate either boy, but Jace cannot stay away—not from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith’s dying magic has wrought—Jace is no longer the boy she loved. He and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become what he most feared: a true servant of Valentine’s evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. Will the Shadowhunters hesitate to kill one of their own?

Only a small band of Clary and Jace’s friends and family believe that Jace can still be saved — and that the fate of the Shadowhunters’ future may hinge on that salvation. They must defy the Clave and strike out on their own. Alec, Magnus, Simon and Isabelle must work together to save Jace: bargaining with the sinister Faerie Queen, contemplating deals with demons, and turning at last to the Iron Sisters, the reclusive and merciless weapons makers for the Shadowhunters, who tell them that no weapon on this earth can sever the bond between Sebastian and Jace. Their only chance of cutting Jace free is to challenge Heaven and Hell — a risk that could claim any, or all, of their lives.

And they must do it without Clary. For Clary has gone into the heart of darkness, to play a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing the game is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she even still trust him? Or is he truly lost? What price is too high to pay, even for love?

Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.

'You can't raise a child to believe the opposite of what you do. I don't think she doesn't believe she can die. I think, just like you always did, she believes there are things worth dying for.'

Hear that? I think that's the sound of Cassandra Clare's brilliance coming back. If there is one thing that is true about the Mortal Instruments series, I think it's that this book is way better than its predecessor. The plot isn't going haywire anymore, and for once there's direction to what the characters are doing. That's not to say that all the different perspectives and couples didn't boggle my mind, but I will willingly overlook that in this case. Clare has brought back the old sparkle that made her previous books so hotly discussed. I was no longer irritated with her for drawing out Clary and Jace's suffering. In fact, I thought Jace was pretty cute in this book. It was probably because he'd lost all moral obligation and wasn't angsting all over the place like he was in CoFA. My mom actually read this book before me, and she agrees with me. I really enjoyed the multiple facets that were seemingly given to Sebastian, and I almost found myself trusting him too. Which I never should have done, but kudos to Cassandra Clare for making me almost believe that the evilest evil-doer on the face of evil could actually be good. The best villains, after all, are the ones who are convinced that they're doing something right. Also, I am now 99% certain that Brother Zachariah is Will. Please. His "interest" in the Herondales and that time when he says he would die for two people? He's definitely not Barney the Purple Dinosaur.

One thing that stands out to me most about this book: Clary. She goes from the wimpy girl from CoB to a total demon ass-kicking heroine. I was pretty worried in the middle about her developing a case of Stockholm Syndrome, but even though she wavered at moments, she never forgot about the task at hand. Especially when she fights back against Sebastian. Speaking of Sebastian and Clary. Ewwwww. That scene with them...ewwwwwww. That is all I have to say. Anyway, Clary's final act at the climax proved to me that she had learned from all her experiences considering selfishness, love, and sacrifice. Which brings me to the next topic.

Whew, is there a lot of sacrifice in this book. There are people offering themselves up left and right, clandestine exchanges everywhere...It's a pretty bittersweet ending that this book has, and I hope that all of the characters will end up finding happiness, if only because all of them have been through such complete, utter crap. I mean, Magnus and Alec? It made me sad. It really did. But I was glad that Magnus had finally decided to speak out against the way everyone was treating him like the answer to everything. But I really like Magnus, and so I hope he and Alec solve their problems and are a happily ever after couple. Because they deserve nothing less.

One thing that niggles me about this book is the fact that the Clave seems totally useless. They're like the cops in those superhero movies, in that they always rush in and make things worse by getting in the superheroes' faces with their walky-talkies and badges or whatnot, and in the end their cop cars blow up and the villains escape because of them. I haven't seem them do anything good, actually. Their contempt towards Downworlders and the ineffectiveness of the "Law" don't exactly strike much faith in me. Also, I didn't enjoy Maia and Jordan's pillow talk. Or anything about them, really. Too much kissing, not much else happening. That was a problem throughout the book for me, actually. There was too much almost-sex happening where it didn't really mean anything, and I found myself skimming those parts. The ol' metaphors and similes are still at large, and I could have done with less description. But I loved learning about Paris, Prague, and Venice. It's always a nice surprise when the characters travel to different places.

Other than that, I really did like this book. I finished it in two days, if that's any indication.

Last thoughts:
Maureen: What. The. Flipping. Flamingo. I'm scared.
And one again, Magnus and Alec:


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Review: Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

OH. MY. GOD.
I CANNOT. EVEN. FATHOM. WHAT JUST HAPPENED.
Review to come because I put off about 3 hours of studying for this.

Edit-Rating: 4.5 Stars
This book is incredible. The very first sentence just sucks you in, and I swear I tried, but I could not untangle myself from this story. I had to finish it, and finish it I did, at the price of not getting any work done. But it was well worth it. Why?

Because Penryn is a badass, that's why! And because Raffe makes all the girls' hearts flutter.

So, let's think about what you get from this book. You get a heroine who can actually kick some serious butt and has undying loyalty that gets her in bad situations but simultaneously makes her endearing and not whiny. In addition, she is not willing to sacrifice her strange family even for some hot stranger with wings (Hush, Hush, anyone?). You get a dreamy guy who is all suaveness and charm but gets some serious hurt throughout the story instead of somehow being untouchable. Also, he doesn't sound like some blathering romantic and actually is not emasculated by his time near possible love interest (*cough* Daniel Grigori *cough*). And you get a plot that leaves you reeling and basically sobbing for the next book.

A bonus? There are flesh eating creatures and some Mengele-esque experiments.

I think I've already given away too much, but it's safe to see here that this story is definitely original. Susan Ee knows what she's talking about, and she's not afraid of writing it. While I recommend this for slightly more mature young adult audiences, I think that everyone would get a kick out of this book. This is the first book in months in which I have actually been emotionally invested in, and that's a bad sign about the publishing industry, if they're publishing books like Fallen over jewels like this one. While I would have liked a bit more world building, like why Gabriel was flying around in the sky in the first place, that definitely didn't affect the pace with which I devoured this book. I seriously devoured it. I put my iPod in my bathroom, and after I finished showering, I stayed in the bathroom for an hour reading.

Engrossing. If you're looking for action, stop here. Right now, I believe this is the best post-apocalyptic book out of 2011 because of the amazing job Susan Ee has done with her characters and her plot. All of her characters have weaknesses and distinguishing points, with the exception of Obi, who I was little iffy about. The love relationship develops slowly and subtly, in a way that's believable. And I loved the voice that Ee gave to Penryn. She doesn't wax poetry or complain shallowly (Juliette from SHATTER ME and almost all other heroines), and her voice comes as painfully sincere. A teenager thrust into the boots of a grown-up who is taking the responsibility but holding on to who she is the way she knows how. The fact is that nobody in this book is perfect, and that's definitely a change from the usual la-la-la the world is blowing up around me but nothing's my fault trend.

This is also the best book about angels I've read so far. Daniel Grigori, Patch Cipriano, and the Churches can all burn in a bloody hellfire as far as I'm concerned. Ee did her research. She definitely didn't mess up with the Grigori and the archangels. Somehow, she has spun it to a darker angle than most would be used to. The end definitely made me clutch my chest. I had no idea what would happen to the characters, and I zoomed through the last 100 pages because I couldn't bear not knowing what would happen to everyone. It threw me for a loop, but the book did end on a hopeful note that closed it off but had me banging my head when I realized that I don't know when the sequel is out.

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