**spoiler alert** OK, I am only rating this four stars because it is a good story, well written, even though I have major issues with it I again I’m s**spoiler alert** OK, I am only rating this four stars because it is a good story, well written, even though I have major issues with it I again I’m still rating it 4 stars mainly because of one character and one character only and that’s Nightmare.
I was immediately disappointed to see that this book had three POV‘s especially since the first book didn’t have multiple POV‘s. I didn’t feel that it was necessary here and in my experience as a reader, an author relies on multiple POV‘s when they lack the ability to progress their story. Now sometimes dual POV‘s can come in handy and can be executed well, there are authors who have done that, but my opinion is that if you’re going to give me multiple POV‘s then the POV‘s need to progress the story, they need to relate to what’s happening and in this case, I ended up skimming a lot of the chapters that focused on Elm. Sometimes no matter how much we may like a supporting character they are meant to be a supporting character. OK, think about movies, think about acting categories. You have lead actor and supporting actor. You have lead actors and you have character actors. You know, people who are meant to be the main character, and those who are meant to be part of the supporting cast. And while Elm, yes, was responsible for so much of the comedic relief in the first book I in no way think that he warranted his own POV let alone as much of his POV that we got. Were his chapters meant to try and offset the heaviness of Rayvn and Elspeth’s chapters because they were boring. His story was just about this alleged love and I really ended up skimming the majority of it. I was not at all interested in these feasts and what Ione was wearing or anything like that. I truly felt that we were given this love story between these two characters in this book because Rayvn and Elspeth were separated and you know we don’t need two grand love stories in a duology. One is really fine and sure maybe have them get together, but it doesn’t need to be a main story at all if anything I feel cheated by the author for not getting more of Elspeth and Rayvn because they are who we were rooting for from the beginning. I was here for the action. I was here for the resolution. I wanted to just get as much Rayvn and Elspeth as I possibly could and the Nightmare yes, you know I had my suspicions after reading the first book that there was more to him, especially seeing how much he cared for Elspeth and everything in the bond that they had I mean, that was just confirmed and further cemented I mean, I literally freaking cried when the two of them were saying goodbye to each other, so that relationship was quite beautiful. Now, this allegedly was Elspeth’s story, but we got hardly any of her and then even the epilogue was more about Elm and Ione and I really don’t care about the two of them. I care about Elspeth and I care about Rayvn and we got no reunion between the two of them and they were kept apart for pretty much the entire book. I mean, I really wish I could’ve been part of the editing team for the story because what my mind kept going to was how Rayvn was going to be able to look at Elspeth and not see the Nightmare and yeah, the Nightmare was not keeping up his appearance or anything like that to try and help Rayvn disassociate, but still, I mean there is a huge psychological impact, and I feel that if these two main characters have been reunited earlier in the book, you know we could’ve explored some of those after effects with them and I guess just overall I was really kind of disappointed and I kind of was a little bit prepared given how much I absolutely loved the first book I mean I rated the first book 5 stars. I never rate things five stars. I mean, it is very rare when I do that and so I know it’s going to be impossible to kind of live up to that expectation and four stars honestly is a bit generous. I really might rather rate it three stars, but because Rachael‘s writing style is so good and the concept of the story and again the character of the Nightmare himself it’s just so compelling that I will go ahead and stick with the four stars but yeah if you’re all about Elspeth, then this book is gonna disappoint you because we really hardly get her at all and that sucks. The first book I feel like there’s a good balance of Elspeth being in control, but then we see the Nightmare, but then that same balance isn’t there in this book and yeah granted at the beginning she’s like completely lost in their mutual subconscious, but that pacing could’ve been amped up a little bit more and honestly if we got rid of all of the crap with Elm and Ione, this probably could’ve been one single book instead of a duology, but perhaps I’m in the minority so will I read other books by this author yes and that first book I still feel just as passionate about it and the duology is definitely just leaving me severely wanting more of Ravyn and Elspeth...more
This was a DNF for me. I wasn’t really a fan of the writing style, and I was not at all impressed with the female main character, and once we got to tThis was a DNF for me. I wasn’t really a fan of the writing style, and I was not at all impressed with the female main character, and once we got to the part where it was time for her to escape for her life, I was questioning her thought process so I read some reviews and it kind of backed up and confirmed my suspicions which is that the girl is an idiot and since I wasn’t really feeling it, I decidedlife is short time to move onto the next book...more