The Burning White

If there's one thing I can't stand in books, it's when the plot is driven by the mistakes made by the protagonists.

Unlike the previous books in this series, it's difficult to root for the heroes and heroines at any point of time. You see them make so many mistakes that when their actions catch up to them, all you're left with is a feeling of crushing inevitability.

These mistakes are so bad that the only way out that the author could find was deus ex machina: the introduction of a literal, physical God.

For a series that did so well, so far, this is a disappointing conclusion.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I enjoyed the series as a whole. The characters are amazing, Andros Guile is amazing, he shines the most for me here. I'm not entirely sure though how I feel about how things were ended. I feel characters grew really well, I don't know, I'm torn, I really enjoyed it but there's also something that wasn't so great that I haven't yet figured out. The magic system was incredible and really well thought out, I enjoyed it.

SPOILERS

- The ending is too happy, I hate that. It feels like everything just worked out for everyone and I didn't like that.
- I hate that Kip died and came back to life. Id have liked it better if he either stayed Alice or stayed dead
- Liv's story just went nowhere
- The white king just died, he wasn't a great big boss
- Android just became a good guy from nowhere, that wasn't great
- The immortals didn't really need to be there in my opinion, they didn't do or archive anything really. Their presence didn't change much.

I had a lot of fun reading this final entry in the series, but much like a good friend, it felt like it overstayed its welcome near the end. I feel like the author tried so hard to not have another book that hell or high water everything made it in this book. There was so much detail that some scenes seemed to drag, and the frantic pace that plot threads were resolved was a little hard to follow at times. Still a solid conclusion to the series, if a bit long.