Actual Rating 3.5 stars 
 Originally posted on my blog Zach's YA Reivews (zachsyareviews.com) 
 Review: 
 Protagonist: So, there are a lot of people I know who would consider Zoey Redbird an unbearable and annoying narrator, and until this book, I didn't agree. Now, Zoey is supposed to be annoying in this book but honestly even knowing that I was still dreading when her sections came up, because I really didn't want to deal her uncontrollable temper, and how while her judgement was nearly spot on, until the end, it was overshadowed by how out of proportion she blew things that it seemed like the points she made were being portrayed as the wrong ones, when, again until the end, they were pretty spot on. 
 Romance: I've said it before and I will say it again, the romance in this series is completely whacked, and I love every minute of it, well most of the time. With Zoey's love life simmering down to a love triangle instead of the crazy, and sometimes creepy, tangled love web it was, I sort of felt like the web wasn't such a bad idea. While I'm only half kidding, I did feel like the love triangle wasn't handled well at all, in fact one of the love interests got so unbearable that it made me despise his character which is a shame because I was really starting to like the guy. However, this book isn't all about Zoey, there are some cute moments with Stevie Rae and Rephaim, and with Aphrodite and Darius but nothing particularly ground breaking happens with them. In fact it's a couple of fairly newer characters that have a surprising love connection. 
 World-Building: Now, there isn't much in the way of actual world-building, there are things we learn but they mainly revolve around the things we already know. My favorite part of this book was the things we learned about Neferet. All of her chapters, save the first one or two and the last, revolve around the events that happened after the events of Neferet's Curse the House of Night Novella that revolves around Neferet. In these chapters we learn more about what turned a sweet girl named Emily Wheeler into the dark murderous seductress named Neferet. I'm not sure why I was so drawn to these chapters, I know I have a love of flashbacks, but I think it's because it shows that Neferet wasn't always bad, in fact she did a lot of good in her time before Darkness claimed her. Don't get me wrong though, I want her to burn in a huge epic final battle for what she's done, but I really enjoyed the bit of humanity we got to see. In addition to that there isn't too much world-building, in fact this book felt more like filler than the penultimate book in this series. 
 Predictability: One of my favorite parts of this series is that it never fails to keep me on my toes. I was fairly in the dark about every twist and turn this book threw my way. In fact it was constantly hard to tell where this book was going due to it's confusing and unpredictable nature. There wasn't much of story line as much as there was a story maze, I wished there was a good constant flow of the story, but with this nearly hastily setting up the end of the series the time for adventure and quests is over, but with it go clear cut story telling. The beginning was the craziest with a nearly unnecessary sacrifice in the prologue, that lead to catastrophe and chaos for most of the book. 
 Ending: I wasn't really feeling the ending, it was good but I was hoping for something more. I wanted something that really helped to set up a grand final installment, but what we got was what I felt like, just another installment. This series is so large and yet the past few books felt like they were really setting up for the end, but this one just fell a bit flat, and the ending is a shining example of that. There isn't much of a cliffhanger, sure there is one and it's a doozy, but I don't feel as though it really struck me in a way like others do. I don't feel as though I need the final installment right away, maybe this will help the year long wait between books, but I feel like the Kalona novella would have done that anyway. 
 Rating: 
 I liked this installment, I really did, but for a penultimate installment I think my expectations were a lot higher and without those met it really felt flat. I wish that story had more of a nice flow and reachable objective in the end rather than the inevitability that it had. I enjoyed the Neferet chapters immensely and wasn't even turned off that she practically did nothing for the entire book.