I told you there'd be more dragons! And they were speaking too! Those are my fave dragons, so naturally I loved that part a lot.

I was very annoyed like half-way through the novel when everyone started completely freezing Ana out and then totally blamed it on her for some fucking reason? "Boo hooo you didn't tell us we did this thing that was horrible 5,000 years ago and now we have to feel guilty about it so we're gonna ... not speak to you because we feel so bad about it??". Like what? Especially given how fucking LONELY Ana has been for the major part of her life, how fucking DARE you abandon her like that because YOU are uncomfortable? And then fucking blame HER for it? Sorry, Sam, but I'm not sure you deserve her anymore. You were a fucking asshole.

For a moment I thought we were gonna get some sort of "omg this is actually earth but so far into the future!!"-thing, but thank the gods we were spared that. I mean, maybe it's still a possible headcanon, but it didn't go there, so I'm happy. I liked most of the revelations and what we got to see of "the rest of the world" and the other creatures. It all came together very nicely, though some of it were a biiiit magic ex machina for me to keep up with it. Still it was good.

What I'm not buying, though, is that there was a million people around in this city? It just seeems WAY too much, when everyone knew everyone like that. And especially at the climax, having about a MILLION skeletons dragged around the city??? Yeah, sure. Seems reasonable. While a million (or less than, but still several 100,000 people) stood in the city center and watched? Naah, it's too much. I can buy a couple of thousand, but not a million.

Didn't love the last chapter either, because it felt a liiittle bit like it cheapened the rest of the book a bit. I mean, I get wanting your characters to be happy and I prefer it to a sad ending of course, but it was a little bit too much. Before that though, I thought the ending was good and kinda lived up to what happened in the rest of the books. That's not always the case with these trilogies, so I'm gonna complain too much about what I didn't like.

Nah, it was good. All three books were good, despite how the first one started out. ^^ ( )

It is so very sad. I went into this series madly, passionately in love with book one, recommended by a best friend who said this series read to her the way I wrote, and i fell hook, line, sinker into this series, but which each book or novella stepping away from book one it was gotten more convenient and more problematic, and this one was no better.

Well, okay. Honesty time. This was better than the eye gouging terribleness of Phoenix Symphony, but it was only really that. I could read this one without feeling it was dragging (mostly because I was reading it through an incredibly depressing, feeling let down by everyone and everything weekend in my life) so it was an upstep from reality. But everything Ana does is too convenient. Being able to talk to everyone, figuring out everything on her own.

I do appreciate that Meadows made sacrifices of characters along the way -- even though I predicted who was dying when easily, and I predicted the big curtain draw back the moment the cage first rolled into town. I did not predict the end of the book proper, which did surprise me a little. And it's probably part of why there's 2 stars and not three. i can appreciate the last moment of Ana's life being a choice that was both wholly selfish and selfless all at once.

That said....the epilogue made me want to throw this book down an arena to never touch it again.

It ruined everything about reincarnation that first book put together correctly. It ruined everything about the sacrifices made in the book. You turned the page and everyone was alive, at the same time, at the same place, at relatively the same ages, and all was good with the world. Like they'd all been born at once and never had an issues finding or forgiving each other, or making their life back exactly to what it was in the book half a book ago. There were no weird time mismatches or changes to them. And that was to the way too convenient straw that broke everything. ( )

After the second book, I didn't have high hopes for this trilogy. I am very happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While the book was not a huge captivator, it did keep the reader entertained.

The ending was predictable, at least it was to me. But it was predictable in a good way. It ended the way I hoped it would. ( )

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

MY REVIEW:
I had some issues with this book, mainly in the first half, but the ending was perfect for the series. :)

Oh, to review this without giving major spoilers.
I will try.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE
The first part. It just seemed so aimless. Like they were making up as they went. Which is fine… for the characters. But it also sorta felt like he author didn’t know where they were going, and that’s not cool.

The letter. So, at one point, Ana left Boyfriend and some other characters in the middle of the night to go on a Super-Secret Mission. And she left a letter. And that letter was just so… weird. It made me feel weird reading it. Like, why would you say these things LIKE THAT? It was just weird. And pretentious. She Signed it "Ana who Has Life". Yes, with the caps. and yes, like there she thought there was another Ana around that they would possibly confuse her with. And can we talk about the double meaning? the first line of the letter is :Please don't follow me." Then she goes on to use the next TWO paragraphs BEEEGGGGING Sam to follow her. I just... why would you write the letter like that? If it were I, I would far more succinct, and you know, NOT beg Boyfriend to come after me. Cuz that didn't work out at all.

The history. As it turns out, there was nuclear fallout or something and humans hid underground for hundreds of years and when they came out again, dragons and phoenixes had spontaneously EVOLVED. I don’t know about you, but I was perfectly happy thinking this was jus a fantasy world. Now, in fact, I have MORE questions. Namely, why would creatures from human mythology evolve instead of completely new creatures?

The latter part. Where everything came to fruition… but it was so weird and confusing. I felt like I was watching a bad Syfy original. Which, even I know they are cheesy and senseless and bad, I like them anyway (which explains why this part is also in the list of bits I liked).

Cris. I said in my review of book two I hoped some significance would be given to the weirdness that was Cris was Sam. None was given.

Stef. I also asked for Stef to become cool again. And, well… she sorta did, a little, towards the beginning… ugh. Not enough.

Explanation? What the hell happened to the other voice in the temple? That was NEVER explained!!! I WANTED to know! I’m still confused!

The tone. This book tried to be completely serious, without any of those humorous tropes from the first two books. It was like watching a toddler try to catwalk, except it wasn’t cute it just looked sorta weird and it didn’t really work.

The deaths. Yes, people died in this book. No, I’m not upset BECAUSE they died. I’m upset because I DIDN’T CARE when they were dying. I SHOULD care. But I didn’t. that is an issue. Now, I might have cared more if I had binged this series, read the first two back to back and then jumped into this one… but if I HAVE to do that, than there is a failure on the author’s part. Most people don’t have the time or the drive to reread the whole series for when the final installment comes out. If the author CAN NOT make you care about what is happening to THIS character in THIS moment… that’s a bad sign. also, none of those deaths even mattered in the end, anyway, and when I realized tat they were all being reincarnated one last time just for shits and giggles I was just like, ‘Really? THIS could have been your trump card… if I’d cared when they died.”

THINGS I LIKED:
We met more CREATURES! In a complex fantasy world FULL of magical creatures, so far, we had only actually interacted with the sylph. in this book, we interact with centaurs, dragons, phoenixes… yay!

The history. Around the part where the author felt she had to justify the world, The Sylph got an origin story, so more background on Janan’s immortality plan and phoenixes…

The latter part. Once our characters get back to Heart, there’s action and everything comes to fruition and it’s really satisfying.

The ending. The Ending was sort of PERFECT for this story. Similar, in a way, to the end of Allegiant—in that the decision that Ana made was so her, a choice that if she hadn’t made it, she wouldn’t be Ana (which is how I feel about Tris’s choice in Allegiant). And then, at the end END, the hope there, for another life, the promise that everything WOULD get better even though they aren’t YET… I like promises as endings. It was perfect. Not a sad ending, not a perfect ending. Just happy enough. A promise. I was very satisfied.

OVERALL
SO, looking at those lists, there are far more things that I didn't like than I did. (which is why the star rating went down from four to three). But even though there were several issues and things left unexplained, that's sort of what I expected. Nothing else has really been explained up to this point, either, so... but it was a good ending to the series, and I am satisfied.
( )

-- Want to know if the whole series is worth reading? Read my overall review of the whole series at seriesousbookreviews.com! Spoiler Free!

This instalment gets some more physical action but didn't impress me any more than the rest of the series. I actually would have DNF'd it if it wasn't the last book--and by this point I just wanted to see how everything would wrap up. Even the use of the fantasy elements didn't keep my attention.

Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps!

Full Review: http://wp.me/p7hLUw-1sg
Actual Rating: 3/5
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