The Art of Reading

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~My Thoughts~

I have a confession to make. I started watching the TV show before I read this book 🫣 I thought it wouldn’t matter and that I’d still be able to enjoy all that the book had to offer but I ended up playing the comparison game between the two. And it didn’t help that I’d spoiled the major plot twists for myself! But that aside, I did end up enjoying this book and my favorite part was probably Alina’s character development. The author did such a great job of setting up her desire for attention and relationship so that when it came to the Darkling, her need to be seen and loved trumped any skepticism she might have of his true intentions. But over the course of the book we get to see her confidence grow in herself and her powers and this eventually allows her to break free of the Darkling’s snare.

I hope that in future books she grows to become even more independent because at the end of the book, there was still a part of her that clung to Mal. This is problematic because, Mal is kind of toxic? He’s very manipulative of Alina and doesn’t communicate anything well. For example, when we’re first introduced to him, he’s having flings with whatever girl catches his attention, but when he sees Alina seemingly happy with the Darkling, he can’t handle it! And afterwards, whenever Alina tries to bring this up in conversation, he quickly shuts it down. Based on how this book ended, I’m interested to see what happens between them in the next installment of this series. Right now, my feelings are definitely that Alina deserves better, but who knows, maybe Mal will have a change of heart!

Overall, this was a solid fantasy novel with great character development and I’m looking forward to seeing what future books hold! Happy Reading 🙂