SIGH...

The Serpent's Curse.....is a book that I read....I completed it. I struggled to rate it because there were interesting things happening in the last 1/8 of the book but at what cost? Why did I have to read 700 pages for crumbs? Life shouldn't be like that! This book wasn't as aimless as The Devil's Thief but it was still bloated and meandering. I can count on one hand the moments I was excited about or interested in.

I must say, The Serpent's Curse was a SLOG to get through. Every word that was in Miss Maxwell's Google Doc made it onto the page, CLEARLY, because this book was just so f*cking long. And it made me realize that I think this story could've been much better told if we had just avoided the whole Seshat issues altogether and this series was just about a bunch of suspiciously young gang leaders trying to steal things and fight racism/xenophobia. The best and most interesting parts of this were actually with Viola, Cela, Jianyu, and Abel trying to outmaneuver Nibsy and steal stuff because it was just so blessedly straightforward. With Harte and Esta's nonsense, it was all visions and vengeful goddesses and earthquakes and time unraveling and magic going away and adolescent relationship drama and it was so...exhausting! Which is a shame cause I really liked Harte and Esta's little bickering relationship in The Last Magician, but now it's just more of the same and we've veered into "Boy and Girl Obsessed With Each Other To The Point Of Destruction" trope and I'm a little too old for that.

I will be reading the next book because obviously, I'm in too deep and need to know how it ends. The Serpent's Curse ended in such a way that plot points are converging and I can only hope that that makes for a more cohesive conclusion cause I can't take much more of this, I'm not strong enough. I couldn't care less about how Harte and Esta wind up at this point, but if Jianyu and Cela don't at least kiss in The Shattered City I'm rating it one star, deadass.