I have so much to say that I'm not sure where to start with this review. I really did not enjoy this second installment of this series. I'm going to try to break it down into primary reasons why so here goes. There will be lots of spoilers that I will try to cover up as I am able!

1. Length and Pacing. This book was soooo unnecessarily long. Over 600 pages of this book all for what I feel was very little pay out when it came to world building and truly understanding the threat that is posed and how to address it at the root rather than just putting a bandaid over it. Beyond the length, the pacing of this story felt so weird to me. So much happened and it felt like the plot was constantly jumping all over the pace that it made it hard to feel invested in anything that was happening before dynamics shifted so significantly that the previous plot point almost didn't matter any more. 

2. Plot. Oh my word this was alllll over the place plot wise. I was lost about the reasoning for so much of what happened. The first chunk of this book where we are coming to terms with the fact that

Brennan is alive and Violet didn't know

happened so quickly and then they were immediately back at Basgiath. The first chunk of the plot at Basgiath truly felt so pointless. There is this whole conflict between Violet and the Vice Commandant that seemed to have no reasoning behind it, but still has such high stakes for Violet in the end. Additionally, the "collaborate with other quadrants" challenge or second year test was so out of place and I genuinely feel that could have been cut out of the book completely without any major plot points being effected.

Ultimately, the plot goes from Violet being with the rebellion in Resson, back to Basgiath, back to the rebellion, all to end up right back at Basgiath. Like what was the point of any of it!?

3. Stakes. There are so many points in this book where we are told by our narrator  that things are super dangerous or that people are going to die and we are made to believe that each of these situations are super high stakes as a result. But for each of these situations it's told to us rather than shown to us. This includes the final climax of the book where Violet says there is no way that her entire squad will make it out of the battle alive and the they still all do despite the build up of how HUGE the

hoard of venin is described to be.

It just makes it really hard to care about anything that happens because the stakes just feel non existent.

4. The romance/relationship. I didn't love this relationship in book one. It felt nothing like the enemies to lovers I was promised and these two were move love at first sight without knowing anything about one another. In this book it just got worse. They are almost obsessive toward each other despite the fact that I still feel like neither of them actually know anything about one another. Violet did not even know about Xaden's past long term relationship and literal betrothal. I just don't understand this undying love we read about when it feels like there's been no development to that love that we've read. It feels again like more telling rather than showing by this author.

Lastly, I wanted more dragons. I feel like there was very little flying/fighting in this one and I think that contributed to how bored I was the whole fucking book. Those are my main gripes, but I feel like this convinced me I won't be continuing to read this series.