Final review: 1 star. 
 Believe it or not, the first half was actually better than the second half. The villains are ridiculously predictable, the ending hinged on quite possibly the biggest deus ex machina I've read in years (and given how many books I go through, that's saying something) (view spoiler)[seriously, pirates? pirates that have been mentioned like, twice in 750 pages? (hide spoiler)], and at the end of it all, I think I would have preferred to read a book about either Tamsin or Mira. I'm guessing that might be what the next couple of books are about but I'll probably be passing on them - an incredible thought considering it's Richelle Mead we're talking about, but this is definitely my least favorite book out of her 23+ books I've read. I feel like Mead's writing has been going downhill since the end of the Dark Swan series, but what I can definitively say is that she has consistently sucked at writing endings. 
 One more thing I just have to point out: I was super irked by Adelaide because she is soooo great and perfect at all these ladylike things, zomg she is like so much better than these common upstarts! She's incredibly arrogant about it, as if she didn't have the benefit of 17+ years of being born with a silver spoon, having money spent lavishly on her education, and so on. But no, she constantly has to tell us how great she is and how hard she had to work at being bad - except she did that in a completely unbelievable way too, I don't know if it was supposed to be funny that none of her tutors or the other girls ever suspected that she was a fraud when she'd do something perfectly one day and forget it completely the next. I get that being blue blooded is worth a lot to Adelaide and her society but she is so inconsistent in her views, she just comes off as fake. She's so superior (in her head, we get that constantly through the narration) to everyone else except like the couple of girls who become her friends and Mr. Pimp Jr. 
 I mean, how is her struggles in the entire first half of the book an achievement of anything? Do we praise high school students for essentially going back to 3rd grade and acting like the 3rd graders just suck and are soooo inferior? 
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 I'm at 50% and this book is at a 2 star rating for me, so something better save it soon. 
 The biggest problem is that I don't like the main character, Adelaide - she's way too much of a Mary Sue and yet despite all her perfect achievements, she's so incredibly stupid. 
 On top of that, I basically can't stand the love interest either, who has little character aside from being a persecuted religious heretic and Mr. Pimp Jr. Why exactly does she love him again? Because he's hot? I mean, really, what is so admirable or attractive about this guy? He comes off as a sleaze. It's pretty funny because if anything, her alternative match (who is cast more as a villain because of his mother) is actually more honorable. 
 Seriously, I've read every Richelle Mead work to date, and other than the fourth book of the Dark Swan series, I don't think I've ever really hated a book - and even with that book, it was more the fact that the ending was awful and the heroine made a mindnumbingly dishonest, stupid, and selfish choice, not that the entire book was awful. The last couple books of Bloodlines weren't great - I basically forgot about them after I read them - but they weren't terrible, I think. 
 Actually, speaking of the Dark Swan series, I will say that Cedric reminds me of Kiyo. A lot. In all the wrong ways. And we all know how that turns out - the heroine cheats on the guy who actually loves her and protects her because she has to get together with a loser who has a baby with another woman and who is too spineless to even defend her. THAT was the moment that I realized Richelle Mead could not just disappoint me as an author, but actually make me furious. 
 All right, I'm still pretty bitter over the way that Eugenie/Kiyo/Dorian triangle turned out, but the reason why I'm ranting about it here is because this book stirs up all the exactly same pissed off feelings.