This book really split me. Bear in mind, I basically sped through it in one day and I find that whenever I do that, I tend to not focus on all the details of the book but nonetheless I'm kinda very confused on how I feel about it. On one hand, I enjoyed all the action that this book presented and I was hooked the entire way through but, also, I had several issues with it. Before I go into my issues, I think for the most part if you've liked the rest of the series, you'd like this book. I couldn't put it down the entire way through, just like all the previous books, and it's filled with all the action and plot-twists you'd expect. BUT, that being said F?dsfS?DFs what the fuck happened. In my head, I felt like the story arc of this book was a bit messy. A lot of ground (literally and figuratively) was covered in this book, and this may be just due to my quick speed read of it, but it feels a bit jumbled in my head. And I feel like this was just exaggerated by the many MANY times where a late reveal was made that kinda fixed everything out of the blue due to a character's behind the scenes planning/plotting. I enjoyed these reveals sometimes, but I found that they happened so many times in this novel that it almost seemed a bit cliche/annoying. Other than that, though, for the most part I loved the action/fantasy plot that developed. Expect lots of ships and SEA BATTLES WITH LYSANDRA KICKING SOME ASS. 
 Another thing that bothered me was the romance. I hadn't found this to be an issue since the first Throne of Glass book, but in this one, I felt like all my feelings from the first book came back. I felt like sometimes the romance was too cheesy, and the novel almost forced every single 'single' character into a relationship which seemed unrealistic and somewhat frustrating in my opinion. Kind of reminded me of the Harry Potter epilogue. 
 Speaking of Harry Potter, I found a couple parallels between those books and the plot in this book (view spoiler)[ e.g. the raising the pig for slaughter thing/suicide pact, the pensieve/magic mirror reveal (hide spoiler)] and I'm sure they'll unfold differently, but because the plot didn't seem as original, it took away from the punch. 
 Back to the romance thing, though, THERES ALSO LIKE A PROPER ~descriptive~ SEX SCENE/S IN THIS BOOK???? I'll give the warning to younger readers now, I did not see that one coming at all, as it never really crossed that line in previous seasons, and it just strangely felt like fanfiction to me. To be honest, the romance within this book in it's entirety, felt like fanfiction. I didn't feel it came across as real or very genuine. I don't particularly have an issue with the sex being there, and despite me having issues with the romance in general, I think overall it didn't detract severely from the plot as it did in Throne of Glass, but sometimes I doubted it's necessity in the novel. I think the book would have felt exactly the same if not better without the sex scene/some of the unnecessary romance bits, but eh not too big of an issue to me. 
 I loved the character progression of Manon in this book, and I think everyone agrees with me when I say she was one of the highlights. Lysandra and Aedion were also a highlights, although I'm still on the fence with their whole relationship thing. I just felt a bit suffocated in heterosexual, white pairings from no joke EVERY SINGLE main character in this book. And to be fairly honest, that was my main issue with the book. 
 But all of those points being said, I think this book is definitely still enjoyable and I had a blast reading it. I can't wait to see how everything pans out in the next/final book in the series, and in terms of the non-romantic plot, I'm pretty satisfied with how it developed. 
 I do think the last book is really gonna pull everything together, hopefully! Oh and last, but not least, READ THE ASSASSINS BLADE BEFORE THIS BOOK, OR PREFERABLY BEFORE HEIR OF FIRE OR QUEEN OF SHADOWS. TRUST ME, YOU'LL WANT AND NEED TO.