night0wl_23's reviews
133 reviews

I was really excited to read this book, I adore the concept, and I liked some of this authors other work, but this just didn’t do it for me. 

The book was just kinda mid. It was okay up till around the halfway mark, had a nice balance of eeriness and mystery, just for it to be thrown out the window and forgotten about. 

The Owl Society just didn’t feel that developed, having the main characters discover them at the same time that they’re about to get killed was just a bit weird? The mcs just went into the forest to search for their friends with zero knowledge about the society, they just knew something tried to murder their other friend. Had they at least known about the society it would’ve given them more reasonable motivation to go out there looking in my opinion. 

The plottwist by the end, while I saw it coming, just didn’t have much structure surrounding it to work well. It felt so random and out of the blue, but maybe that’s just a ‘slasher’ thing? Common trope? I don’t know. 

The characters were also very bland, not much that distinguishes them from each other. Zero survival instincts or common sense. You’d think horror enthusiasts would know better. 

In a horror book you obviously know that the characters are scared, but the minimal description of emotions really messed up the flow for me as a reader. “‘They murdered them, what do we do?’ I ask.” just sounds wayyy too casual in a life or death situation lmao 

(I also normally don’t notice repeating phrases or usage of words, but I was about to lose my god damn mind reading “I said/asked” and “they said/asked” over and over again on the same page) 

You’d think that when a series continues after a planned ending, it would give you more answers, possibly flesh out the characters, plot and world building more, but no. This was not doing any of that.

Somehow Juliette thinks she can just be a supreme commander without any training or help, she gets angry with Castle for suggesting that Warner should help her out with international politics she doesn’t even understand (and then later admits he’s right?? But she’s still mad at him???)

I feel like the plot is constantly paused to allow for Juliette and Warner to have their moments, “let’s just pause EVERYTHING so they can kiss and cuddle and think about how hot the other is”, it’s quite annoying, especially when the other supreme commanders supposedly want her gone? Dead? Do they want to control her? I’m honestly not sure, and I don’t think they are either.

Juliette seems to suffer from what the internet would call main character syndrome, she’s got plot armour and apparently her abilities have no limitations. She says she cares about the people, but when she got angry with Warner, she was angry because he tortured her sister, not just because he tortured someone. (And honestly, who is she to be mad at him. She didn’t tell him he had brothers, and now she’s angry he didn’t tell her that she’s got two sets of horrible parents, whom he thought was dead. He wanted to save her the grief!) 

Rushing what could’ve easily been the plot of the entire book (if paced properly, and more fleshed out) is crammed into the last 40 pages. 

I don’t know what to say anymore, I feel like a broken record writing the reviews for this series cause the books are and feel the same, nothing changes and it’s starting to get boring how bad they are. 

And what the hell was the poison induced hallucination about? Why is that just never mentioned again? 

And killing Brendan, Lily, Alia and Ian at the very end was literally just for shock value but won’t affect the plot what so ever, they haven’t been relevant since the second book. I bet Juliette will mention them once in the next book and then forget they ever existed.

I adore T. Kingfisher’s horror books, and this is no different.
This is a short and quick read, the pacing is amazing and the characters are surprisingly fleshed out and interesting despite the length of the book. 
The balance between the feeling of dread, uneasiness and curiosity is actually perfect. You can’t put it down. 

This book was supposed to be the final instalment in this series, and I have a lot of thoughts, so this is going to be a longer review. 

 

The pacing of this book is all over the place. They were training for this ‘war’ for like a month? But we rarely read about them training, planning, or strategizing. There are multiple characters that’s been introduced in previous books that barely get any ‘screen’ time, if they’re not a love interest, ex love interest or Kenji, they barely exist in Juliettes world. 

 

There is a lot of telling, and not much showing. We see it all from Juliettes perspective, which is so limiting when all she does is telling the reader that she’s been training hard and that her and the survivors of Omega Point are planning how to take over North America. Aaand the only other situation we see for most of the book is Warner, and how "incredibly beautiful" he is. 

 

In the first book this girl just wanted to live, she wanted to survive, wanted to break free from the asylum, but now suddenly, she’s always wanted to destroy the Reestablishment?? I can’t blame Adam for being confused, as the reader I’m literally in her head, and I’m confused. 

 

And don’t even get me started on Adam. I had no strong feelings about who Juliette should end up with, but its incredibly cheap to change his character to make Warner an ‘obvious right choice’ for her. He’s not even recognisable anymore. And it quite frankly annoys me how he is so violently upset that she doesn’t want to be with him anymore, instead of, I don’t know, BEING UPSET THAT EVERYONE IS SIDING WITH THE GUY WHO TRIED TO KILL HIM??? Everyone just forgot about that huh. 
 

The book is 400 pages long, but it isn’t till the last 30 pages where the actual war starts. And once it started Juliette had no issues to get through all of the highly trained soldiers singlehandedly, and kill the Supreme Commander with what felt like no issues at all (like, seriously? Who the hell would stay and keep shooting their target when they can see the bullets just bounce of her skin?? Is he stupid?) 

 

In conclusion: the book was so dragged out, and somehow still made the ending feel rushed. The world building, after tree books, is still incredibly weak, and the plot that could’ve been a cool dystopian story with politics and rebellion is overshadowed by badly written romance and dull dialogue. 

 

God forbid Juliette talks to another woman, god forbid we leave morally grey characters as morally grey (of course Warner needed to have ‘reasons’ behind all his bad actions that made him 'no longer horrible'). 

 

I honestly can’t believe this series is as popular and high rated as it is. This is not deserving of a 4.35 average star rating. I feel like booktok has been lying to me. Not even middle school me would’ve liked this bullshit. 

The world and character building in this book is truly remarkable, so many layers of storytelling with beautiful writing and breathtaking narration. 

I would highly recommend listening to the audiobook, I don’t think reading it myself would’ve given this story the justice the narrator does. 

This is a must read for any fantasy, sci-fi and dystopian book lovers. Possibly the best series I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. 

Did not finish at 106 pages. 

I was really excited to read this book, but I just couldn’t get into it. The world building was too much with little explanations, and the characters were kinda boring. 

I might give it a new try at some point, but right now it’s just too confusing

Is this book mainly plot- or character-driven?
Considering the plot is almost nonexistent, it can’t be anything but character driven. 

This is supposed to be a dystopian romance, but if I’m gonna be honest it’s 95% romance with a sprinkle of dystopian. The world building is barely existent at best. 
I honestly don’t know what the main characters are doing to fight against the Reestablishment really, they’re just mildly annoying stealing supplies, it’s generous to call this group of misfits rebels. 

The romance is bad, the plot doesn’t exist outside of the romance and the characters are so insanely boring. 
It feels like I’m reading a rapidly updated fanfiction, that’s how inconsistent the plot is. 

But alas, I have all 6 of the books so I’m gonna keep reading cause although horrifically bad, it’s mildly entertaining and an easy read ;) 

I’m gonna be so brutally honest, I hated this book. I feel like I’ve lost braincells.

If you want to read a shitty instant “I would die and kill for you” (in a bad way) romance with 0 chemistry and the tiniest hint of a dystopian setting with a side of nothing, go ahead - this was definitely not my cup of tea, and it should probably stay in 2011. 

I will however probably keep reading the series cause like, I’ve got the books already and this is a very easy read + it’s mildly entertaining with how bad it is lmao 

I’ll probably come back and edit this review as I gather my thoughts on what exactly went wrong here

I was very intrigued by the premise of this book, overall I enjoyed it, but the characters don’t really stand out to me. Don’t get me wrong, I liked them, but they’re very forgettable. 
The writing was a bit too YA for me personally, but ignoring that I did enjoy the story! 
✨Love me some existential crisis while facing the extinction of humanity✨

I LOVED the way the author incorporated social media as a sort of time capsule. Lowrie coincidentally finding Maya’s name and finding her past online activity, slowly revealing more and more secrets? SO COOL!  I’m not even gonna lie, I think Maya was my favourite character

Did not finish at 108 pages.

The main character was insufferable, and the writing relied so much on dialogue, bad dialogue, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. 
I can’t tell you what has happened so far either because the story felt so inconsistent and jumping between topics so much that I couldn’t keep up. 
I came for horror, not an insecure guy having a massive crush on a girl he just met.