** spoiler alert ** 
 If good high fantasy is a body of flesh - blood pumping, juices flowing, brain thinking, joints moving, a hundred thousand tiny synapses and capillaries and white blood cells rushing and sparking and knitting together to form a natural machine - then this series is an empty ribcage, browned with age and disrepair. There are no lungs inside it; it doesn't creak and sigh with every nonchalant breath. It's just a pile of bones haunted by the ghosts of what it might have been. 
 The world building in this series is truly awful. Nothing is stated unless it serves the plot, which makes for a seriously skimpy experience if you're into the intricacies of high fantasy worlds (which I am. Call me crazy, but I like details. I like to be taken on an adventure, not just feel like the author is trying to rustle up something worthwhile to give me in exchange for my money). Granted, my copies of this book and Siege and Storm sincerely erred on the side of functionality, being UK copies and thus devoid of any fancy fonts, page numbers, chapter headings or maps, but that's no excuse for such a soulless ending to a series. If this were a middle book and it had sat at this quality, then that would be different. But this is the last hurrah, and I'm totally not feeling it. 
 We have a whole lot of nothing happening early on, except a couple of Mauve Shirts dying and some strange interactions between the Darkling and Alina. Then The Thing happens to Nikolai, and it's gratuitous as fuck, because there is absolutely no plot or character development linked to it. I don't even know why the author bothered. The Darkling turned Nikolai into...something (I totally don't understand the magic systems, the Darkling's power, or anything really; what the fuck is merzost? No idea) and it was awful, but there's no dealing with it. It just happens, and then it stops happening, and Nikolai is a broken shell of a man, left alone and sad and I suppose it's supposed to generate sympathy? But we already like Nikolai. He's super likeable. He's the only character worth giving a damn about. And I suppose he needed to be punished for that? 
 I don't get how Mal is suddenly the third amplifier, but I won't lie and say I wasn't stoked when he died. Unfortunately, this is the cheesy side of YA, and we can't have any female characters (a) ending up alone, (b) allowing themselves to be powerful, or (c) choosing the greater good over a dude who makes their thighs twitch. Bonus points if our lovebirds have stilted sex once and then are sure that that's the same sex they want to have forever. Bonus bonus points if the heroine is a virgin who ends up with the first guy she sleeps with (because ladies, once you give it away, you can't get it back again! You're spoiled! Sucks for you). 
 Of course, Alina trades in all of her power and ends up living an intensely ordinary life in the town she hated as a child, and it's not the actual A to B of this ending that really bugs me - it's that, in Alina losing her power, Mal gets everything he ever wanted. The S&S Mal would be puffing out his chest right now, grinning, feeling really fucking pleased with himself, because all he ever did was beat his chest and cry about Alina being more powerful than him, and act all "emasculated" (just a side note: "emasculation" is the most ridiculous concept in the entire cosmos, and I want to punch anyone who uses that word seriously in a sentence, because it is fucking nonsense). So, good for Mal, I guess. He got what he wanted. Somehow he still managed to be the star of the show. 
 Look, I knew this series would not go out with the sort of bang I enjoy (teehee) but I sort of expected more. It took me forever to get through, was dull, was nonsensical, and to be honest, I feel like the author got bored and stopped caring. I don't blame her. I would. What started as sort of a semi-cool concept devolved into another lame quest for magic objects that obviously is solved by the power of love or some such unrealistic shit. Yeah, I know this is high fantasy, but what makes high fantasy relatable and enjoyable is the realism in it. We're dealing with wars and revolutions and tyrants and our world, our real world, has had its fair share of wars and revolutions and tyrants. Those things aren't fantastical, so I expect them to be handled with a little more finesse. 
 Oh, and more bonus points for treating death with an almost sociopathic apathy: Harshaw dies and we don't even see it happen. Half a sentence is dedicated to it during the battle, another half a sentence a chapter after that, and then who fucking cares! It was just the crazy guy! Never mind. Alina and Mal got their happily ever after, and that's all that matters! 
 (Don't give me shit about Alina lighting a fucking candle. Harshaw and Ruby and all those people who followed her gave up everything they had for her, and all we get is some horseshit epilogue about how they paint their ceilings and frolic in meadows with children orphaned by border wars that are continuing to rage. What did those people die for? A broken, lonely king and a liar who fakes her own death so that she doesn't have to deal with the fallout of the massive revolution that she led. Blech.) 
 I give this book two stars because of Zoya, and the writing, which was okay. It's not Austen, but it'll do. It's better than The Young Elites which literally made me want to take a nap for a year. It was so dead, it felt like ashes. It was so dead, it tried to suck me into the underworld. 
 Alas, this book was a lacklustre ending to a series that I have already mostly forgotten about. It was limp and tasteless, like lettuce that's been sitting out for too long. Actually, that's the perfect way to characterize this whole series. Wilted lettuce. Unappetizing to look at, weak in flavour, and the last thing I'd pick up if I had any alternative. 
 Fin.