20th finished book of the year: A Soul of Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

2 ⭐️ - This was.. a filler episode made compulsory. I skipped through most of it.

I thought we’d mostly rid ourselves of ‘re-write the start of the story from the guy’s perspective’ as a book plot back in the days of Twilight, but clearly Armentrout thought there was still some value in it. I really can’t say that I agree in this case - an expansion on what Casteel (MMC) was doing during the events of the first book doesn’t appreciably add interesting context to the story as a whole, and with the last book ending in a massive cliffhanger, this feels almost torturous. 

The ‘past’ chapters make up about 90% of the book, with ‘present’ chapters peppered throughout that mainly consist of Casteel sitting next to Poppy’s bedside talking to her about what happened in the ‘past’ chapters. There’s context given to this, he’s helping her get her memory back, and that’s cute, of course, but it’s not very INTERESTING. There’s one very brief fight, and a few interactions with other characters, but in all honestly I’d recommend skipping this book and just reading a summary online. 

It’s disappointing to have to say all this, because the first three books were excellent. 

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