User Profile

I enjoyed the twists and turns of this story in principle. It gets pretty wild, but it’s clever and fun. I laughed at the juxtaposition it created between the killer account vs what actually happened.

But I was often quite bored. It takes a while to get going, and a lot of the book is drawn out action scenes. It’s not as entertaining to consume that kind of scene in book form. The book also just keeps going with more and more story, and I was getting tired of it.

The author gives Emma a decent amount of back story and her own little twists, but I didn’t care for any of that. It was too generic for me. I prefer thrillers that don’t try to throw in this kind of character work because I find myself unmoved.

I was entertained enough to keep going, especially once it feels like the thriller really kicks off. I do think Adams came up with a fun concept. But I wish it was shorter!

I liked this better at the start. As it progressed, as often happens with thrillers, the twists and turns didn't always work for me.

I liked the idea of what felt like multiple con artists coming after this poor woman, stepping on each other's toes. But the story doesn't really run with that like I thought it was going to. Patrick is out of the picture or defanged pretty quickly.

I also liked the reveals about Nicole in terms of Tom's grandmother - which fed into how she takes out Olly. And I liked the idea of Anna and Nicole getting back at Sasha in a manipulative way, but it's hard for me to believe they are capable of it given their characterizations.

I wanted Tom to die because of that sheep so bad. As in, that he'd hit his head on the sheep itself. It would have been so stupid and amazing. Alas.

What didn't work for me:
1) The journal. I wondered why the journal existed at all until it became an important-ish object in the story itself. But it doesn't read like a journal, which is always maddening. Especially since there aren't that many entries, I don't know why Macmillan didn't make it more authentic.
2) Too many elements that didn't matter: the romantic tension between Jen and Hal, Anna's camera and Kitty's body, and Kitty as Olly's aunt. The epilogue also just kept going way past anything I cared to hear about.
3) Too many convenient circumstances that often had to be awkwardly explained: the disabled cameras, the fact that Tom tells Olly they are disabled, the operation of the sauna such that Olly could be killed with it, the fact that Anna is now called Kitty (a twist, but what was the point?), the fact that there are two places with bones on the property and Anna forgot about one, the presence of the homeless man, the fact that Nicole forgets to close/lock doors so Olly can get inside, the fact that Tom's phone is dead... etc. Some of this is the nature of thrillers, but it piled up too much here.
4) I don't enjoy detective/cop POVs, and we get two here. I don't know that they added enough to be worth it. I think the main thing we learn via the cops is that Kitty is Olly's aunt and that didn't really matter anyway.

Even though I had lots of nitpicks, I was entertained enough, so I give it 3 stars.

This was way more fun and fast paced than I expected. I had a really good time with this one.

This book combines fantasy with crime fiction/suspense very successfully. It makes a lot of sense that the author is a lawyer. It’s 95% perfectly paced with twists and turns the whole way through. The only place I’d say it drags is in the “court room” piece where Vonvalt summarizes what the reader already knows.

I loved this trio - Helena, Bressinger, and Vonvalt. They cared for one another but also largely respected each other’s competence, which felt cozy in the midst of some dark happenings.

I personally hate an info dumpy fantasy, so the minimal style here worked for me. Vonvalt could easily have provided a clunky lecture on all the powers Justices have, but he doesn’t. I know of some of them but not all because it’s not relevant to the story yet.

Swan did a decent job writing a female POV. She has moments where she cries or chickens out, but also moments where she’s strong and smart. This wasn’t one of those times when a character is called smart and then they proceed to never do anything smart.

4 stars for being entertaining and bingeable. 3 or even 2 stars sometimes for the plot, characters, and writing. But I came for entertainment, so it gets 4 stars!

I didn’t realize this was apocalyptic, so that was a fun surprise. I liked the mystery/thriller elements combined with that. There were high stakes at all times, so it was compelling.

Sometimes the events got too crazy. Not everything needed to be the most insane thing that could happen. I had to roll my eyes at times, and I think it would’ve been a better story a little simpler.

Some things that bugged me:
1. The label “whistlers” got an eye roll - we know we’re gonna call them zombies or infected, not some cutesy name
2. One too many times a character “feels like they’re missing something, but what??”
3. One too many times a character has a clunky “and this is how I did it” monologue

But I enjoyed the way Carter was handled, and some of the reveals were great!

This whole trilogy has been great, and I enjoyed the crescendo to this finale. There’s a lot of continued character growth for everyone, including the liveships. There are reveals about the liveships and about Kennit in particular that shed new light on all that came before. I appreciate the personality and decidedly different priorities that Tintaglia has. There are a lot of complex relationships and POVs at play, and I appreciate how Hobb lets them be complex.

I enjoyed Kennit as a character a lot, so I was saddened by the turn he took in the end. I wouldn’t say it’s inconsistent with the rest of his characterization, but it’s not what I hoped for him.

There’s rape in this book like there was in the second book. I could really do without it, and I usually avoid books that include it, but I do think Hobb handled it well in terms of the aftermath. Given that she wrote this pre #MeToo, it’s surprisingly nuanced. Characters have to decide what to believe and deal with the fact that a person can do good things and be rapist.

A couple things kind of nag at me:

1. What’s the deal with the wizardwood charm? It doesn’t have a large enough presence to warrant being there to me. It occasionally confronts Kennit about his actions, but I don’t know. It feels random!
2. Serilla ended up feeling like an odd POV to include. I thought after book 2 she’d have a larger role in book 3, but she doesn’t. It’s odd to include her as a POV character at all when it doesn’t seem necessary.

I don’t know if we return to these characters later in the the series, but I’m happy with where they conclude here!