There was one conversation that stood out to me… “I do not love my family any less than he loved his. I truly cannot think of a single thing to regret of 2023, which makes stepping into 2024 a bigger year of hope and growth for myself.

In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory - or to an unimaginable doom. I get that we saw her because of Helene in other books, but I just missed her because I feel like she’s such a good character.That was soooo sad and it actually did surprise me (although it probably shouldn’t have knowing this series). I still consider Laia to be the main character of this series and I think she continues to be the rock and heroine of it all. Tahir's most recent novel, All My Rage, won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, was an instant New York Times bestseller, received eight starred reviews and won the 2022 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry. The Nightbringer was funneling souls into the Sea of Suffering instead of to the Waiting Place to increase its power and unleash suffering onto the world.

I think one of the best decisions was making Laia a Kehanni-in-training as it highlighted the power, strength and beauty of stories which seems so symbolic and amazing as we draw this series to a close. I’m glad she is still surrounded with kind people too but I would have loved Harper with her as well !Throughout the novel we continue to build towards the end and Elias was a big part in this because of his role, his skill and his power. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory--or to an unimaginable doom. Outside of the end, this as usual has the same addictive prose as the previous books and a crapton of political intrigue. Laia already gets a ‘happily ever after’ with Elais anyways, but to make this happen Mira was brought back so that she becomes the Soul Catcher and Elais is free.

I’m glad she was able to get her revenge on the Nightbringer, even if it played into the plan he had. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, listening to thunderous indie rock, and playing guitar and piano badly. We FINALLY, FINALLY got answers, do you know how long I have waited to hear what Elias said to Laia, and we finally got it! DISCLAIMER - All opinions on books I’ve read and reviewed are my own, and are with no intention to offend anyone. All of the little flashbacks from the last books, they were never actually told to us in the previous books (I think?People who died in previous books aren’t just forgotten about, they’re spoken about and you can see the impact they’ve left on other characters, I like that they’re still remembered because they were part of the journey. She got hurt so much, and her mother was taken from her, and Keris was forced to listen to her own being tortured to death. I’m just not a big fan of the death prophecy thing at all so I could have lived without it tbh but still really good.

Because there is something inside us that is reflected on these pages, something we recognize in the characters that reminds us of ourselves. I had honestly been waiting for this book for the entirely of last year and whilst I had a few tiny wrinkles, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and I would say it is what I wanted from this series finale. The number of sacrifices she made and was willing to make was terrible especially since I don’t think the Martials would care.Sabaa Tahir grew up in California’s Mojave Desert at her family’s 18-room motel where she spent a lot of her time devouring fantasy novels. If I had to summarize the plot, I would say Laia is busy making rash decisions and not listening to anyone, Elais is moping about his life, and my poor Helene is the one suffering. For the final book in a series it exceeded all of my expectations, it’s absolutely heartbreaking and devastating, but I still loved every single moment of it. The one who went to the rebels for support, and became a slave for The Commandment, tolerating each and every insult and every scar. I loved the few instances where we had them together and it would have been nice if there were more (when they were talking about boys?