Iton

I don't think I've ever read a book with an opening line like this one.

Opening aside, Charlice was a grating protagonist, overly dramatic, and all-round pain in the ass to read. The other characters were one-dimensional and lacked depth. The dialogue was not the best and had a lot of grammatical errors towards the end.

So... young women from influential families were dying/going missing after participating in the Finish at the Remington estate for centuries and their families were accepting of this?????? Like did no family get suspicious at all when they never heard from their daughter/sister???????? And the worst part of it all, the girls were fighting to death to marry a man and could leave in body bags or emerge the victor. bombastic side-eye from me

This book is... not good at all. The adults during the Finish failed the girls, and the Royale “game” at the end was horrendous. Adults were hunting kids down and kids were fighting each other to their deaths. The kids were failed by the adults and everyone was annoying AF. I could not handle how some off the names of the kids were a huge tragedeigh. The only upside of this was Adina was wise enough to ghost Graham once she got out.

It pains me to give this book 1 star. I devoured books 1 and 2 and was looking forward to reading this.

The first half of this book was fine, showing Pip's PTSD struggles, explaining the new mystery, the ties with the first two books and characters.

The second half went off the rails. She should have run and not involved Ravi and her friends in covering up her crime. And then she turned around and cut them and her family out of her life while the trial was going on. It was such a letdown.

I was ready to give the book 1 star and rage quit when it seemed like Audrey was going to give Harry another chance. Especially after seeing how her father leaving completely wrecked her mother. I'm glad I finished and had a huge smile when Audrey picked herself and realized she deserved much better. I really enjoyed the book ending with road trip to Wales with her mother. Showed her mother is slowly healing after her terrible ex. Her father is the worst...

The last chapter solidified the 5 stars for me. I'm a huge fan of people speaking up and saying how they feel. In the words of Mark Sloan “if you love someone you tell them, even if you're scared that it's not the right thing, even if you're scared that it'll cause problems, even if your scared that it'll burn your life to the ground, you say it loud and then you go from there...”.

Strike and Robin's biggest problem has been their miscommunication so I'm really happy the final chapter finally happened. Can't wait for the next book, whenever that comes out.

It was nice to have Prudence and Strike have a relationship. Wish there was more Vanessa, Robin needs more friends that aren't Ilsa. Nick was missing-in-action.