Overall a good book, though I didn’t like that it directly continued from the first book. It almost felt as if this book was the second half of the first instead of a story on its own. This led me to have trouble getting into the book en keeping myself engaged throughout the middle part.
I do really like the overall concept and there were some marvelous dark chapters (the torture really was something else, in a good way though). So it’s a low 4 stars from me.
I don’t recommend reading it if you struggled with the first part, if you liked the first part and want to know how the story ends though then by all means, read it.

Is this really a sequel for All of Us Villains?? Because to me it felt like the authors were telling a whole different story. The plot was all over the place, the twist was preposterous (and predictable), the pace was uneven at best, the characters were completely unrecognizable, and why, why oh why do you bother to create this ruthless tournament to the death if your only focus is the romance?? After an excellent first book, this was incredibly disappointing

I enjoyed the first book more and aspects of the story irritated me but the point they made about death in life and in stories has truly haunted me. I love that they chose on this series to never laud death as something necessary. It was pretty much always a tragedy, and I think that’s a fantastic choice.

But it has also made me sad and certainly encouraged me to look at how death is framed in books in a new light.

Not a bad book at all! I’d definitely still recommend this duology to YA fans, I’m just not the target audience. Read a bit slower than the first book, though that could just be me (I was distracted and my heart wasn’t really in it).

Wow, this was terrible. It takes a weird kind of talent to take everything that was interesting about the premise, setting, and characters of the first book (which had its own share of issues, but nothing like this) and ruin it so thoroughly.

List of Things I Hated the Most:
- This book is like 80% exposition. Characters talk to each other. Then they move to a new location and talk some more. Oh, here are two more characters heavy-handedly talking about plot points and their motivations instead of doing literally anything! Even the "action" scenes manage to be boring af. How.
- The magic system and rules of the world become increasingly nonsensical, especially the distinctions between common, high, and life magicks. The rules seem to shift whenever convenient, usually to fuel or resolve some character drama. (I say drama because I REFUSE to call anything in this book 'character development' lol.)
- Yeah, I did not care about any of the characters or anything that happened in this book, despite not feeling that way in the first book.
- Stupid plot detours/decisions. Maybe if they had kept the focus on the 5 champions and given them something interesting to do, I would have cared at least a little. No, I don't need your random government, press, and spellmaker plots that go nowhere and add nothing to the story. Please no.
- Did they really add a new 6th champion just so they could neatly pair up the characters into couples? Yep, that's exactly what they did. Love having THREE romances with next to no development, believability, or emotion in them!

Are we sure that this book is itself not some kind of curse, trapping us in our own Blood Veil until we finish the trial of reading it and/or kill our way out?

WOW! this is my favourite series after Percy JAVKSON now, which is a VERY high place to take - this book is so good and so is the first one. I WISH I COULD READ IT AGAI. AH I NEED EVERGONE TO READ THIS (also alistair and briony are my FAVSSSSS)

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