The Ending. I’m speechless. Also I loved Ridoc and Sawyers banter and commentary, Sawyer and Jesinia will be very cute. Love that Violet and Xaden are working on their communication. And I just love little baby Andarna.

The first half of the book was interesting but dragged a bit. But then the second half heated up. While Fourth Wing was gripping and exciting, this one fell a bit flat at times. I’m looking forward to the relationship development of the two main characters. I really enjoyed the side characters and their development throughout the book.

There were aspects of the book that were harder to follow in the fantasy world (not a fantasy reader). I think she did the beginning of the book well and the second part of the book was good too. The ending is amazing. There is just a small section that I couldn't really imagine well, but I love this series. 

spoilers ahead.

idk, y'all. i was so excited for this but i think i have just lost patience for violet, xaden, and their relationship. the side characters, specifically iron squad, were more fun and i enjoyed their scenes more than most of the violet + xaden ones. rhiannon and ridoc are my favorites. i wish sloane and jesinia got more time being present, but at the same time this book was long enough to begin with. other things took priority that i don't think needed to.

the longer the book went on the more annoying violet and xaden became. if you cut out all of the unnecessary drama and secrets the book would be like two hundred pages shorter.

like there's miscommunication trope and then there's whatever the fuck that mess was. every time they spoke to each other it was "i don't trust you" and then "you're not asking the right questions" like holy fuck dude you can't know what you don't know so just be honest if you want her to trust you ffs. don't be such a spiteful pissbaby about her not trusting you if you're not giving her reasons to believe anything you say. good god.

Also, what's the deal with their relationship being almost entirely physical???? either one of them walks in a room and they're both immediately drooling. violet only ever thinks about getting to know xaden when she realizes he's hiding things. i don't remember xaden literally ever, maybe even in fourth wing, asking violet a single thing about her. they're just being horny, but also still willing to risk the entire world for each other, to an irritating degree. 

and what's up with violet being so dumb, for someone who is supposedly the smartest person at the whole school??

she sees the symbols in warrick's journal and is like "ah yes, the six and the one" but doesn't think about what that means at all and only does the initial wards with six dragons. and then when jesinia is like "yo, that's just a seven, you clown" she's completely mind blown and "how could i have missed this?" like yeah that's actually an excellent question. it's almost like she needed to not figure it out for like 200 pages so the solution at the end was more impactful.

not only this but all of the logical, analytical traits she was originally written with are just gone. she doesn't think anything through, she takes unnecessary risks that don't fit her character, and she can't find any control with her magic until the very end. it's one of those things where the MC struggles so badly until the very end and then they almost never miss, but if they do, it's by inches bc the enemy moved so through no fault of their own. 

the MCs feel like yarros forgot who they are and rewrote them for the sake of finding ways to keep tension between them. and cat? jesus christ don't even get me started. i did NOT like that. that was so fucking ick. good god.

idk. there's a lot of other logic flaws that just didn't need to be included. this book felt too long and some of the pacing was kind of weird. things would be brought up and then forgotten for actual months of the story, despite seeming urgent when it first happens. i had moments where i was fist pumping, cheering, laughing, or crying, and then some moments where i didn't understand why we needed to know about what was happening, or what happened to the earlier stuff that seemed so important.

It also feels like yarros just took from the most popular romantasies and kinda plopped in a lot of those stereotypes. this book feels like it was written more to sell to market instead of to tell a story, if that makes sense. idk. a lot of hype for something that feels like it ended up falling flat in more ways than one. my score is the way it is ONLY for the moments i loved that were enough to bring it up. if it weren't for the rest of iron squad, i'd have probably only given it 3 stars.

i'll probably keep reading the series but i'm not as impressed as i was the first time i read fourth wing. (and i did a reread before the iron flame drop and i think i'll be changing my review)