Edit: So, this book finally picked up toward the end, but unfortunately the ending itself is incredibly infuriating. (view spoiler)[Those of you who know about the Flash will find it sadly familiar. I mean, pretty much Kelsea created Flashpoint for herself and that's that. I don't even know what to feel about it except that it's unsatisfying and feels too much like a cop-out. I feel cheated, I feel like I went through a wonderful, intense, horrifying, complicated but meaningful experience, only to wake up and find out that it was all a dream and none of it ever existed. It's one thing when it's Wonderland, but what Kelsea did to Kate and her "solution"? I think I would've preferred to see the Tearling fall, rather than this ending. (hide spoiler)] 
 I don't know what exactly happened with this trilogy. The first book was so full of promise, so different from the other YA novels about princesses and queens. It left a lasting impression on me and I would find myself thinking about it randomly: the narrative structure, the characterization, the oddness of it all, what with the confusion between past and future. I wasn't exactly sold on the story, but I was sold on the execution of it. The second book dragged for me, but ended on a note of imminent action. Again, I found myself mystified but mostly enthralled with the interplay between past and future, as in - Lily's world, which resembles a potential future of our own, full of technology and class/socio-economic rifts - vs. Kelsea's world, a failed utopia that has lost technology and has some odd portrayals of monarchy and genetics/personality traits. I wasn't sure what to make of it all. It's positively medieval with magic, yet ever so often you get this almost out of character reminder that Kelsea is thoroughly modern in her ideas about democracy, down to her suddenly modern speeches. It's complex and full of ideas - so complex, in fact, that it's almost the opposite of most YA novels trying to do similar things. 
 I still didn't know if I actually LIKED the books, but suffice to say that all the inconsistencies and mysteries were enough to keep me reading. So I tried to read this third book as soon as it was published and just could not get into it. Eventually, I put it aside (a rarity for me) to read other books first. Still, since I hate leaving things unfinished and since I still have hopes about Emma Watson's involvement in all this, I tried again a few months later. 
 Now I'm halfway through the book, speed reading and skimming because this book is dragging on unbearably, and wondering why I'm still reading this. There has been no plot progression in about 300 pages. We ended the last book with Kelsea as the prisoner of the Red Queen and basically we're at the exact same point. To be honest, I'm not even sure what I've been reading anymore.