I don’t like writing these types of reviews, but here we are. 

This was Breaking Dawn with 🌶️ (a lot of repetitive, unnecessary 🌶️ scenes at that). And I hope that tells you everything you need to know. 

If it doesn’t:

The series started out fine—not great, but entertaining enough. The pacing is all over the place, but I forgave it in books 1 & 2 because book 3 picked up, especially at the end. There was an air of mystery around things, probably meant as a nod to the “vampire world” but it lost its appeal in this finale when it just went off the rails and left so many things unfinished. 

This is a loose retelling of Hades and Persephone, and I use “loose” because it’s just that—loose. Aside from it being mentioned once—which felt forced) I don’t really see it, even in retrospect.

And I have no idea why there were random POVs added. In book three, it was okay—limited and made a little sense because Jacqueline was becoming more prominent in the story. But Lysander … ? Why. And then one—ONE—chapter from Camilla’s perspective??? 

As for the ending, honestly it could have just been put in at the end of book 3 and it would have been fine. But the rest of this book—if they weren’t banging, Thea was whining and Julian was snarling. And don’t get me wrong, I knew this was a book with spice, but if you took out all the 🌶️ scenes this could have been one book, maybe two. 

I refuse to even talk about the pregnancy 🙄. Just know it added nothing to the plot.

I only finished this because I was buddy reading with a friend.

The last thing I’ll say is, the word “mate” was used 194 times. 194. The book is 494 pages…