"You will accomplish everything you set out to do...of that I have no doubt" ( )

Meh, meh, meh. I really wanted to like this. A big part of my dislike is that it's written in 1st-person present-tense and the whole thing is just choppy. Elisa and Hector's voices sound exactly the same. Also, the whole narrative sounds like it's been poorly translated from another language. The language is formal and stiff in some places and casual and stiff in others but never where it would be expected.

I also never connected with the characters, least of all Elisa. It was like trying to watch a movie with the sound off and no subtitles. Maybe the picture was pretty but I didn't understand what was going on and who was doing what and why. Totally bizarro.

( )

I love this book. Unabashedly, unashamedly, love this book to pieces (and cannot wait for Rae Carson's next book, and next whole series, with this new girl, new power, new world and timeframe).

I love the whole world this story takes place in, how different it is, how long it takes to travel through, how different the people are in each place, how history and current event shape every bit of a person reaction from every location.

I love that Elisa is still Elisa, even though she's grown and changed. I love that every time I felt like I was finding a pitfall with this "no bloodshed/lives lost" war of Elisa's, when she'd beg to have lives spared, like you could win a war that way, it only happened on her side of it. That her friends, and more importantly 'subjects,' followed her requests alone.

And yet -- then we'd get chapters alone with Storm or Hector who had no problem being ruthless with a life in the way, while it was endangering Elisa or her goals. I really love Elisa's relationships with both of these people.

The slow, grinding build from enemy-to-loyal friend/abassador with Storm may be The Very Best emulation of this I have ever seen in a YA novel. I applaud Rae for taking nearly a book and half to make it happen, and that people still are dubious of him as much as he's dubious of them.

I love the whole of Elisa and Hector. Just all of it. The choices they make. The risks they take. The inopportune moments. The eighty percent mark was perfectly how it should be, with "knees and elbows and sheets in the wrong place." And the ending with them was, too -- leaving you without every question asked, but, more importantly, the feeling they would go on living their own lives, loving each other. and answering those questions as the situations to do so arose to them. ( )

This book frustrated me. I felt there was too much detail or what I call “filler” in Elise's travels--and she traveled a lot in this book. I think a lot of it could have been either cut out or shortened. Other than that, I enjoyed this final book of the trilogy.

Instead of just Elisa's POV, we get Hector's too while he is the prisoner of Franco, the Invierne assassin, and traveling through the freezing mountains. It was interesting to get his perspective.

Elisa and three of her friends are traveling not far behind, trying to rescue Hector before they reach Invierne, the enemy's country. She's tapped into her power now so she and Storm, an Invierno loyal to her, practice their new powers.

Elisa has to rescue Hector and has to figure out how to get her country of Joya d'Arena back from Conde Eduardo and General Luz-Manuel who have usurped it, risking civil war.

It is always hard to come to the end of a good series because I have the daunting task of finding a new series that will live up to it. ( )

This was an amazing conclusion to an amazing series. I'm sad to see it end because I fell in love with the characters. I would recommend this series to everyone. In fact I'm making my husband read it. I know he will enjoy it too ( )