My review of book one: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/b4aeb5f3-7b03-45d7-b87d-8c371fc27163

The representation in this book is significantly better than in BONDS OF BRASS. This is, no doubt, due to the fact Skrutskie got sensitivity readers this go around. This was going to be a 4.5 (because I will not give a five star to this cis white woman that profits off of queer characters of color) but from chapters 20-25 I was bored out of my mind. The first 19 chapters were so interesting! I loved being inside Gal’s hed because he’s just such a fun little chaotic Latino (which I can fully relate to), but the book lost me with Ren’s storyline. No spoilers, but it really bothered me that Skrustkie wanted Ren to be a big focus of this book. Instead of writing it in the third person to give Ren the screen time she needs, Skrutskie uses Gal as a camera from chapters 20-25. It was quite boring to read about, in my opinion. I will say, the ending of this book rocked me to my core! My theories from book one were FINALLY proved right and I created new theories for the final book that I’m hoping also prove to be right. OATHS OF LEGACY had so many instances where I was literally screaming and crying. The scene where Gal goes into protection mode, the knife-to-throat scene, the part where Gal talks about them never being allowed to apologize to each other- I was OBSESSED!