Aurora's End

First I want to thank PRH International for giving me the chance to read an eARC of one of my most anticipated releases from this year!

And now... Where do I even start? Writing this is going to hurt, because I love this series so much and the characters are my little babies, but this book was not it for me. Maybe I had high expectations after reading Aurora Burning and I didn't expect this book to be so... soft?

Let's talk about the characters first.

Aurora
I felt like she was so weird in this book and I understand that it was because of the power within her, but she made some crazy decisions, she was acting very strange and I just didn't like her character that much in this book. She could've been so, so much better, she had a lot of potential that wasn't used.

Kal
After Aurora Burning, my heart was broken for him. This guy deserved so much more and he did get some of that in Aurora's End, but not enough. I would've loved to see him make up with his sister, but eh...

Zila
I love her with all my heart. she saved the book, because her sacrifice was literally my favourite thing in this book, one that I felt like it was worthy of the finale of a series. She is so amazing and I wish we knew more about her life with Nari, I need a short story or novella or something about them.

Tyler
I didn't expect him to be the person he was in this book and I LOVED his new self. And I was rooting for him and Saedii, so I'm glad they made the big step, because they're really great together.

Scarlett
I love her growth so much. She overcame so many of her fears in order to save the ones she loved, she became such a beautiful person and I'm so happy that she finally got what she deserves.

Finian
He's enough and he has always been enough and I love him so, so much. He has come so far and I'm so happy that he and Scarlett found each other. I mean it was very predictable, but I love them together. They deserve each other.


The plot? Well, the plot was definitely not what I was expecting. I really enjoyed the whole time travelling stuff, even though my mind went a little crazy while trying to piece everything together. It was challenging and I enjoyed it, coming from a sci-fi book. But as I said in the beginning, this book was too soft. I was expecting a huge fight with the Ra'haam, not what happened with Aurora and her choices. I just didn't feel like it was such a great ending to this series, it was just cute, but not exciting.

All in all, I liked the book. I even loved some part of it, but not the book as a whole. It could've been much better in my opinion, but this is all we get.

Books, Coffee & Passion

3.5 stars
Aurora's End was the first book I read in 2022. I was excited to read this one because I loved the first two books in this trilogy. It was a roller-coaster! I can't say much about it because I don't want to spoil it, so I'll try to keep it vague and brief.

The pacing was insane but some of the plot devices used to move the story further weren't my favorites. Specifically, because of that, the first half of the book felt a little disjointed. Still, I couldn't put it down and I enjoyed some of the storylines and moments. Especially Tyler's, which was kind of surprising to me. The character growth that Tyler and Zila go through was very well done. Tyler's POV was my favorite in this story.

The ending bothered me. A lot of YA books end with this trope and, even though, I enjoyed it at times, I just don't think it makes ANY sense in this book. I'm sad. Some of the choices made didn't make sense in my opinion, considering everything we were led to believe in the previous books. Some of it felt convenient. And I wanted so much more for the last book in the trilogy and these characters we love so dearly. Regardless, I love Squad 312 and I'll keep loving these characters.

Overall, despite everything I said and I'm definitely in the minority, it was still enjoyable. I liked the epilogue a lot. I only wish I loved Aurora's End as much as I loved books 1 and 2.

What a travesty the Aurora Cycle has been.

Rising - 2/5
Burning - 1/5
End - 2/5

I guess I can say the book matched the first one? That's positive in the least.

I don't know what the authors were thinking making this one a “time-travel” story. The tag line of “it's about time” is fantastic and made me interested but... mothercustard this one was also just not good and the one star extra is for Finian x Cat being adorable.

My reviews never contained spoilers but this one... oh yes, this one does because this book has made me genuinely angry with how wasted the potential was. It reminds me of a lot of M. Night movies that have an amazing premise but fail at everything else.

The Aurora Cycle and it's End is just that. It has some fun characters (Fininan, Magellan) and the story can be interesting at times... or I guess it could have but the way Kristoff and Kaufman took this is just stupid.

Aurora is terrible and good 80% (or even more) of her lines are either:
a) “Kal? Where is my SPACE ELF boyfriend? I miss Kal
b) I am the SAVIOR. I am the CHOSEN ONE.
c) Forgetful.
Did I say 80%? I meant 100%. They made the TITULAR character Bella from Twilight. Our elf Kal even had imprinted on her just like Jacob did to the monster CGI baby in whichever Twilight movie that travesty happened.

Kal is easily the worst character and has been since book 1 when I give it proper thought. His lines are all about Ben'shmai or ‘The Enemy Within' which sounds wince-worthy even when I try to imagine I'm thirteen. His fight scenes are lame.
Really, Kal should have died in Burning (book 2) to show the consequences of what can happen if Aurora fails her mission of defeating the plant-based villains.

Tyler, the Gary Stu of the group aka Goldenboy, is... OK. Except he starts a thing with a MASS MURDERER. Do we just forgive Saedii's self-admitted crimes? No: “I love you but you like... helped to kill billions of people. Sorry babe.” Jesus...

Finian and Scar are great this time around but I'm still salty that Finian, like ever character worth talking about, got a cishet relationship. Nope. You don't get a poly rep, an enby rep, nope. All you get is Mary Sue Zila being a lesbian with a character we've never heard of before. That's now how you do rep, you muffins.

The story is a mess. There are three points in time. Out of them one (the future) is entirely irrelevant and if you were to tear those pages out of the book (which I had wanted to do the 54th time Kal whined about his Ben'shmai being the bestest and strongest of women) nothing would change. The story would work anyway. Then the best one (the past) is fantastic but also easily skippable if you just don't care.
The one that does matter is the present with Gary Stu Tyler but that one is damn boring until the end.

Ah and the ending.

“The ending is paramount,” I always say.

And I do mean it. Even a mediocre series could be easily turned into a fantastic one by a good ending. Weirdly enough the start of Aurora's End was amazing and I had fun with it wanting to rate it 4/5 but everything else just dragged it down to a 1 or 2 out of 5.
The Ending was boring and predictable. Out of the main cast nobody felt any consequences for their utter stupidity. The ending even has them get money deposited in the past so they can be rich.

Did a rattlesnake write this?

Terrible series and a terrible end to it brought to a 2/5 by the virtue of it being readable (unlike Book 2).

I'm trying to conjure up some real feelings for this book, but I've got none. It was an easy read, of a series where I've enjoyed each book just a little less than the last. I'm not happy with all the time travel and the villains that are actually not - look, they're so wonderful, too - and certain characters (Tyler, Scarlet) get on my nerves nearly all the time and others (Auri, Kal, Fin) get on my nerves average half the time. (And I love Zila and am hurt that she is so under utilized. She has four chapters from her perspective, Tyler has three times that many. Urgh.)

Anyway, don't regret reading it as it wasn't bad just something I was disappointed with.

Oh, also, I am not pleased with the way literally every main character has to be paired off in a romance. Blech.