annaki_laila's reviews
162 reviews

I’m reminded once again just how ridiculously good de Castell’s writing is. I swear, each book just gets better and better. It’s such a rewarding thing to see Kellen develop and the plot was fantastic in this one.

Sadly, this was a dip in the series for me. The new characters introduced weren’t exactly memorable and didn’t really feel like they added much, and I felt myself sorely missing the characters that didn’t join the main trio in Japan. The book being in three parts makes it easy to outline my thoughts though:

Part one - An ok start, but nothing much that kept me wanting to read more.

Part two - My least favourite of the three, which is not ideal considering it was the biggest and held the bulk of the plot. It just really dragged and didn’t have much excitement for me.

Part three - I actually really enjoyed it, felt like a return to how the first two books were. It’s such a shame that this came in the last, and shortest, part of the book.

Given that the first entries in the series were so lovable and charming, I think this is more so a blip than an indicator of where the series is headed. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping. I really do still love the characters and can’t wait to see them back again.

Ughhh I have such mixed feelings about this book.

The first third of the book was pretty meh. I didn’t like nor dislike it. Then things started picking up, I thought ‘hey, this feels like the first book! this is great!’, and that feeling lasted right up until the last few pages. And then those last few pages happened, and everything felt kinda ruined.

Plot twists aside, my other problem with this book is that it really, really, really isn’t a sequel. It’s a spin-off. And branding it as a sequel gave me such different expectations than what I would’ve had if it wasn’t called a sequel. I would say that at least 80% of the plot in this book could’ve been the plot of a different book with different characters unrelated to One Of Us Is Lying, and would’ve made sense just fine. The links between this book and the book it’s apparently a sequel to are mostly character-based, and mostly relating to just 1 out of the 3 protagonists at that.

This book has been so insanely hyped ever since it came out, and yet it STILL managed to exceed my expectations. Incredible.

I kind of had to drag myself through the middle third (probably didn’t help that I was very tired whilst reading) - at that point I’d give this book 2 stars - but I’m glad I kept reading because the last fifty pages or so really pulled it together. Thus the 3 stars.

I didn’t expect the protagonists to be so interconnected in the end. I feel a bit stupid for not noticing some of the more obvious connections earlier on...

As much as I would’ve liked a ‘complete’ ending, I think what turned out works because it lets you fill it in. And I like to think that the author intended it to be a positive ending, because that’s the way the last few chapters seemed to paint it in my mind.

[DNF] This is the second time I’ve tried to read this book. The first time, I think I only got about 30 pages in. This time I got to page 86, but I just... can’t. This book had so much potential but it’s just really not working out. There’s so little world-building that I feel as though the story is taking place in a void. There’s character and place names being thrown around in the dialogue, but I have no idea who/where/what they are, and what the significance is.

From the get-go there was little setup with the whole Affinities thing, which was so so disappointing because magic should be exciting and interesting! It’s a fantasy novel! Instead, we just know that one of the main characters has a fire power thing, and there are six gods or spirits or something, which each have a type of power. We are told that some people don’t mind magic users and others hate them, but we don’t know why. I realise that of course these questions could be answered later in the story, but the problem is that the reason I have these questions in the first place isn’t out of intrigue, it’s because there is frustratingly little information to begin with.

Ok, rant over. All in all this was a real disappointment. The plot doesn’t spark any interest, I don’t care about the characters, and the magic is ridiculously under-explained and almost irrelevant.

Somehow terribly realistic yet surreal. And that ending, wow. Give me the sequel right now.

Hallelujah, it's a series. Jackson's writing is so ridiculously gripping and the plot was intricately put together. Loved it.