Does the last 300 or so pages make up for 500 rather unnecessary ones? That is the question I am contemplating right now. 
 The finale book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy is MASSIVE. 819 pages to be exact. For those who love reading about London society, and angsty heroine's, the first 500 pages of this book are for you. For those who are looking for more exciting adventures and actual exploration of who these characters are with a plot, page 500 and on will be more up your alley. 
 Without the end, I would have given this book one star. It probably also would have taken me another two weeks to read. There are a lot of people who didn't like the end of this book, but it turned the whole thing around for me (so thanks to the person who didn't use a spoiler tag, it intrigued me enough to push through). 
 I hate to say it, but the beginning of this book had me hating Gemma. I felt like she regressed from the previous two novels. (view spoiler)[ I also don't like that the fact that Gemma was completely changing how her family members were acting with her magic was never addressed. For someone who hates having people tell her what to do, she was oddly fine with compelling herself whatever kind of reaction she wanted from them. It was odd to me how she stripped them of their freewill without any thought of wrongness. (hide spoiler)] I ended up liking characters that I didn't expect to like and I was never quite sure who to trust, much like Gemma would have felt, so bravo for that. 
 As a whole, I would not recommend the series. While it has it's good points, I don't think wading through half a book is worth the good parts at the end. The interview with Libbra Bray makes me really sad that I didn't enjoy this series more. She seems like a super cool lady (and she hates math. I can totally get on that ship).