WARNING: This review is negative and brutally honest, so you probably won't enjoy reading it if you loved the book or are deeply attached to these characters.
Anyone who knows me knows that I didn't enjoy Glorious Rivals or The Same Backward as Forward (just Toby's POV). Unfortunately, many of the issues I had with those books are still present in The Gilded Blade. I genuinely hoped this book would surprise me and make up for the weaker writing of its predecessors, but instead it ended up being, without a doubt, the most disappointing installment in the series for me.
Now the challenge is deciding where to begin, because there is so much to unpack.
Let's start with the points of view, which were already mishandled in Glorious Rivals and, in my opinion, are handled just as poorly in The Gilded Blade.
Jameson has a point of view, but he doesn't have a real character arc.
Jameson's POV would have made perfect sense if it had been accompanied by genuine character development: a meaningful confrontation with his dysfunctional coping mechanisms, real emotional growth, and a carefully developed reconciliation with Grayson. Instead, his chapters often feel like little more than a retelling of the events from his perspective, without the internal journey that truly justifies making him one of the novel's narrators.
In an ensemble novel, giving a character a POV naturally creates the expectation that they have something new to contribute: a conflict to face, a transformation to undergo, an emotional journey the reader is meant to experience through their eyes. After the ending of Glorious Rivals, the groundwork for Jameson's arc was absolutely there. That's why I was surprised to see those conflicts reduced almost entirely to his love for Avery.
I also had the impression that the Hawthorne brothers, once incredibly layered characters whose identities extended far beyond their romantic relationships, are now increasingly defined by their respective love interests. The only partial exception is Xander, who ultimately receives far less attention than the novel initially seems to promise.
In Jameson's case, his most compelling conflict had already been established in the previous book: his fractured relationship with Grayson and his impulsive, self-destructive way of responding to stress and guilt. The Brothers Hawthorne demonstrated just how brilliantly Jennifer Lynn Barnes could explore his psychology. Because of that, I expected this apparent regression to become the starting point for another stage of his emotional growth. Instead, the conflict is resolved within only a few pages, with a speed that, in my opinion, doesn't match the emotional weight it carried in the previous novel.
As a result, Jameson ends up being defined almost exclusively through his relationship with Avery. Much of his internal narration revolves around what Avery would want, what Avery deserves, or what Avery would think. But Jameson is so much more than his romantic relationship. He has his own identity, his own fears, traumas, and internal conflicts that exist independently of Avery, and The Brothers Hawthorne portrayed that aspect of him beautifully.
On top of that, the book presents several narrative opportunities that could have been used to deepen his character arc: his relationship with Grayson, his trauma surrounding Alice, and the psychological consequences of everything he has endured. Yet these elements remain surprisingly underexplored. I was left with the impression that Avery's presence almost replaces the emotional work Jameson still needs to do on himself, leaving some of the saga's most compelling conflicts unresolved.
In the previous books, Jameson isn't simply impulsive. He has a very specific way of responding to pain: he projects his anger onto others, struggles to regulate his emotions, and tends to act before processing what he's feeling. These behavioral patterns were carefully built over the course of the series.
If Glorious Rivals deliberately brings those patterns back to the surface, the reader naturally expects them to become the core of his character arc. Instead, they are essentially resolved within a single scene.
Behavioral patterns don't change simply because someone reminds you what the love of your life deserves. They change through self-awareness, setbacks, difficult conversations, and conscious choices.
JLB also sidelines the events in Prague and what they actually mean for Jameson. Considering how central that trauma had been to his characterization in previous books, I expected it to continue shaping the way he experiences the events of this novel. Instead, it remains almost entirely in the background, despite its direct connection to Alice and everything she represents.
Jameson and Grayson were left with one of the strongest unresolved emotional conflicts in the previous novel, yet their reconciliation occupies very little space and is handled with surprising superficiality.
Grayson, who had always been, in my opinion, one of the strongest and most complex characters in the series, was by far one of the biggest disappointments in this book. His character, too, is ultimately reduced to his relationship with Lyra. He has virtually no narrative agency of his own and exists primarily as the love interest of one of the point-of-view characters, with very little to contribute in terms of his own internal journey. Although he remains physically present throughout the story, I constantly had the impression that his narrative identity had become secondary to his romantic role.
In the previous books, Grayson existed independently of his romantic relationships. He had his own motivations, internal conflicts, and emotional struggles. Here, his presence feels almost entirely functional to the journeys of other characters.
Unfortunately, Lyra suffers from a very similar issue.
She has every ingredient needed to become a compelling and layered protagonist: a traumatic past, a personal mystery, significant psychological wounds, and an arc that had already begun in the previous books. However, those elements are treated more as pieces of backstory than as tools to genuinely explore who she is.
In The Grandest Game, Lyra was defined by the lasting consequences of her trauma. Her pain shaped her everyday life, influenced the way she perceived herself and the world around her, affected her decisions, and created a clear fracture between the person she had been before her father's death and the person she had become afterward. That internal divide offered an incredibly strong foundation for further character development.
Instead, her trauma and the conflicts that should have formed the core of her character arc remain largely in the background and are resolved with a speed that, in my opinion, doesn't match their emotional weight. Her inner dilemmas become less central, she displays fewer contradictions, her motivations become less defined, and her journey feels driven more by external events than by genuine internal growth.
As a result, Lyra ends up existing primarily in relation to Grayson, despite having all the potential to stand as a fully realized character on her own. Ironically, even their relationship—which could have deepened both characters individually—ultimately reduces them to each other.
One of my biggest issues with Lyra is that the narrative seems almost afraid of letting her simply exist as an imperfect person.
She is protected so carefully from making mistakes, being unlikeable, acting irrationally, or revealing morally messy aspects of herself that she ends up feeling oddly undefined. She rarely makes questionable decisions, rarely creates meaningful conflict through her own flaws, and rarely challenges the reader's perception of her. Beyond her trauma, her relationship with Grayson, and her role in the mystery, I was left wondering: who is Lyra, really?
A character doesn't have to be consistently right or consistently easy to love in order to be compelling. In fact, it's often their contradictions, flaws, and uncomfortable choices that make them feel human. Lyra, however, remains largely passive throughout the novel: events happen to her, her relationships define her, and her own personal development repeatedly takes a back seat.
I found both her relationship with Grayson to be overly rushed, excessively sentimental, and ultimately inconsistent with the emotional complexity both characters had displayed in the previous books.
Gigi has always been my favorite POV of the second trilogy, which is precisely why her handling in this book was such a disappointment to me.
In the first half of the novel, I actually think Gigi is one of the strongest-written characters. Her internal conflicts are clear, emotionally compelling, and incredibly relatable. Her desire to be taken seriously, her constant comparison to Savannah, her fear of not being enough, her need to prove her worth, and, at the same time, her deeply human desire to simply be seen and loved all come together to create a remarkably authentic character.
The scene in which the Watcher offers her a place and she refuses is, in my opinion, one of the best scenes in the entire book. Likewise, the moment when she breaks down with Knox after Savannah and Rohan leave her behind beautifully captures both her vulnerability and the weight of her insecurities.
For that very reason, I found the direction her story takes in the second half of the novel deeply disappointing. Many of the conflicts introduced in the first part are never truly explored or brought to an emotionally satisfying conclusion. We never really see Gigi fully confront her fears or go through the kind of personal growth that would allow her to redefine her own worth independently of other people's approval.
Her relationship with Slate is certainly an important step for her. Finding someone who truly sees her, recognizes her strength, and chooses her is meaningful. However, it cannot serve as the definitive resolution to emotional wounds that have been built over years. It can support her healing, but it cannot replace the healing itself.
I would have liked to see Gigi reach that self-awareness through a deeper personal journey rather than primarily through someone else's perception of her. I genuinely appreciated the decision she ultimately makes regarding Sheffield, but I found the way her internal conflicts were resolved far less developed than the character's potential deserved.
As a result, in the second half of the book, her POV gradually loses the strength it had in the beginning. It doesn't explore a character with her own desires, fears, and contradictions. And at some point her pov loses importance in the story because it starts to have nothing to do with the main plot.
Rohan, on the other hand, is without question the strongest POV and the best-written character in the book.
What sets his arc apart from the others is its remarkable clarity. Rohan has a clear goal and knows what he wants, but he is never defined solely by that goal. Alongside his primary objective, he has other needs, fears, and desires that often conflict with one another, creating the internal contradictions that allow him to genuinely grow.
Rohan undergoes exactly the kind of character arc I had hoped to see from the rest of the cast. By the end of the novel, he understands who he is and who he wants to become beyond the Mercy and the role that world assigned to him. His decision to walk away from the mercy is not a simple act of rejection—it comes from the realization that remaining within that system would mean abandoning himself, his own desires, and the relationships he has finally allowed himself to value.
I particularly loved the symbolism surrounding the rocks. As a child, they were almost the cause of his death, dragging him beneath the water. By the end of the novel, however, they become the very thing he clings to in order to survive. It's a beautiful reversal that perfectly reflects his emotional journey.
The scene with Nora is, in my opinion, one of the strongest moments in the entire book. The fact that Nora—a person with whom he doesn't share a particularly deep relationship—becomes a source of comfort simply because she is there says everything about how much he has changed. He is no longer someone who views other people only through the lens of survival.
When he chooses to save her, he doesn't do it because he suddenly sees himself as a hero. In fact, he still believes he isn't one. That's precisely why his line about being able to "play the part" of the hero is so powerful. It represents a conscious choice. Rohan doesn't magically become a different person; he chooses to act according to values he once believed he could never possess. He finally decides what kind of person he wants to be. He admits he has never been a hero, but realizes that identity isn't fixed—it's something we choose through our actions. He decides to act, to take responsibility for his choices, and to stop allowing his past to dictate his future.
His relationship with Savannah is also handled far more effectively than many of the other romances in the novel. When Savannah rejects him, Rohan doesn't fall back into his old patterns. He doesn't shut down, lash out in anger, or retreat behind pride. Instead, he remains faithful to the person he has become and to the courage he has found in allowing himself to be vulnerable.
That is exactly why the resolution of their relationship feels so satisfying. It grows out of conscious choices made by both characters rather than simply existing because the story needed a happy ending.
More importantly, Rohan's decision isn't just about Savannah. He isn't leaving the Mercy simply for love—he's choosing himself, his own desires, and the possibility of building genuine human connection. For his entire life, Rohan has avoided depending on other people because his past taught him that love inevitably leads to rejection and abandonment. Going to Savannah means confronting that fear head-on.
His victory isn't that Savannah immediately loves him back. His victory is becoming the kind of person who can say I love you without shame, without hiding, and without allowing the fear of rejection to dictate every decision he makes.
The only thing I would have liked was a little more space in the final chapters and the epilogue to show what happens afterward—how he chooses to live his life and what direction his future ultimately takes. I also would have appreciated more attention being given to his friendships, considering how central loneliness and the absence of meaningful relationships have always been to his character.
Rohan works so well precisely because his character arc isn't simply about finding someone to love. It's about becoming someone capable of loving others while finally choosing himself.
Aside from the character arcs of the POV characters, the main plot is the most problematic aspect of the novel.
The mystery feels extremely overloaded. It accumulates an enormous amount of information, connections, revelations, genealogies, secrets, and backstories to the point where it becomes difficult to distinguish which elements are truly essential and which are simply additional details.
The issue is not complexity itself. A good mystery can be intricate and require the reader's attention. However, complexity should guide the reader toward a deeper understanding of the story, not create a constant sense of confusion. In this case, the reader spends more time trying to reconstruct the mechanics of the mystery than emotionally experiencing it.
The previous books had planted relatively little compared to the sheer amount of explanations and revelations contained in this volume. In fact, some of the information previously established is contradicted in order to create twists that, in my opinion, do not work. As a result, an overwhelming amount of information is concentrated into a single book, leaving very little room for each element to be properly explored and processed.
Some revelations lose their impact, not necessarily because they are uninteresting, but because they arrive at a point where the reader is already struggling to absorb countless other details.
The twists, especially in terms of their construction, also failed to convince me. An effective plot twist should not simply be something the reader could have never predicted: unpredictability alone is not enough. A good revelation should surprise the reader while still feeling coherent once it is revealed, allowing them to look back and connect the dots. When a narrative twist exists only because it is the option furthest away from the audience's expectations, the result is often more confusion than genuine surprise.
Additionally, many of the explanations surrounding the mystery, especially toward the final part of the book, are left too heavily to the reader's interpretation. Several elements introduced earlier are not explored or clarified enough, creating the impression that some questions are left without satisfying answers.
On top of that, there are several situations that I found inconsistent with the rules of the narrative world, which in this case is supposed to correspond to our own realistic universe. Some international movements happen with an unrealistic speed, completely ignoring the amount of time required for intercontinental travel between Europe and America (which happens far too quickly and does not align with the number of days in which the events of the novel take place). Other elements, such as Brady surviving a swim through open ocean during his escape or Eve surviving the collapse of an entire building, require a more convincing explanation within the story.
Suspension of disbelief is something every story can ask of its readers, but it still needs to be supported by the internal logic of the narrative.
I do not even know where to begin when explaining how disappointing I found the Emily plot twist, which, in my opinion, is the only true twist in the entire novel. The rest of the revelations mainly consist of explanations and additional information that, instead of increasing the reader's engagement, often end up making the story feel heavier.
Emily's death in the original trilogy had already fulfilled its narrative purpose. It was not simply a plot event: it was a moment that deeply shaped Jameson and Grayson, influencing their relationship, their guilt, and the way they developed as characters. Precisely because it was irreversible, it carried such a strong emotional weight.
Emily should have stayed dead. Her death had already accomplished everything it needed to accomplish within the story. By bringing her back, the novel does not add new meaning to her storyline; instead, it weakens the impact of her death and everything it represented for Jameson and Grayson.
Her return seems to exist primarily for shock value. Emily comes back, but she does not bring a meaningful conflict with her, she does not have a significant role in the story, and, most importantly, she does not create the kind of emotional reaction that a revelation of this magnitude should have caused.
The way Jameson and Grayson respond is particularly disappointing. Both of them built years of their lives around the belief that Emily was dead and that they had played a role in her death. Her return should have challenged their identities, their sense of guilt, and everything they had spent years trying to process. Instead, their reaction is incredibly restrained. They handle the situation almost as if it were a minor detail and, even more disappointing, the novel never gives them a genuine conversation about the impact this has on their relationship.
Jameson and Grayson should have had a real reconciliation only after confronting everything they had been carrying, especially everything connected to Emily.
There is another major issue as well: the book never provides a clear and satisfying explanation for how Emily survived. Jameson watched her die in front of him, and Grayson pulled her body out of the water. A revelation of this magnitude cannot simply be left to the reader's imagination; the text needs to provide a coherent and complete explanation.
An effective plot twist is not simply one the reader fails to predict. It needs to emerge organically from the story, have consequences for the characters, and allow the reader to understand, after the reveal, why that narrative choice was necessary. In this case, however, Emily's return feels constructed more to surprise the audience than to genuinely enrich the story.
Emily appears for a brief moment, has no meaningful impact on the characters involved, kisses Grayson—which feels entirely unnecessary—and then dies again.
The handling of the Crucible suffers from a similar issue. Potentially interesting elements are introduced, but their structure and mechanics remain unclear, leaving the reader with more questions than answers.
Another major issue is the way Avery is handled. We are talking about the protagonist of the entire series, the character around whom this story began, and yet in this book she only appears in the final chapters, with very little page time and a role that is almost entirely passive.
The most disappointing aspect is that Avery, who in the previous books was actively building her own story, making choices, and participating directly in the events around her, is transformed into the final reward of the narrative: someone to be found and rescued rather than a person with her own agency.
We never see her process experiences that should have deeply affected her. We do not witness her grief over Toby's death, nor do we see her confront what truly happened with Hannah. These events should have been fundamental to her personal journey, yet they are simply resolved off-page, leaving the reader without the ability to understand what they meant for her or how they changed her.
Her relationship with Eve is also handled too superficially. Two people who initially could barely stand each other eventually come to see one another as sisters, but the reader never gets to experience the process that leads to this transformation. We are told that the time they spent together and the experiences they shared during the Crucible brought them closer, just as similar experiences have connected other characters before them, but that emotional journey remains entirely outside the narrative.
The reader needs to witness that change in order to understand it and feel its impact. Without those transitional moments, a transformation that should have carried significant emotional weight ends up feeling rushed and underdeveloped.
Avery should have been at the center of the saga's conclusion. Instead, she is deprived of the very qualities that made her such an effective protagonist: her ability to act, make choices, and give meaning to her own story.
Furthermore, several narrative decisions throughout the book seem to have been made more to satisfy reader expectations than to serve the internal consistency of the story and its characters.
The most obvious example is Jameson and Avery's wedding. It feels primarily like an emotional reward for the fans, especially considering the fandom's response and the strong desire many readers expressed to see this moment. However, from a narrative and character-development perspective, it does not feel like a necessary or coherent conclusion to the journey that had been built up until that point.
Jameson and Avery's relationship was never defined by their desire to get married. What has always characterized them as a couple is exploration, adventure, the desire to discover the world, their willingness to constantly challenge themselves, and their choice to face every obstacle together. Their bond was not built around the pursuit of traditional stability, but around shared freedom.
For this reason, the wedding does not feel like the natural conclusion of their character arcs, but rather like a more conventional ending imposed on a couple who had previously been defined precisely by their unconventional nature. A more coherent conclusion would have celebrated what has always made them who they are: the way they choose to live, grow, and explore the world together, rather than introducing a symbol that had never played a central role in their relationship.
Furthermore, from a thematic perspective, I found the decision to end the entire saga with a wedding questionable. The Inheritance Games was never only a romance. It has always been a story about family, identity, belonging, personal growth, sibling bonds, generational trauma, and the search for one's place in the world.
Ending the series through the marriage of the main couple narrows the scope of the themes that made the series compelling in the first place. The epilogue leaves very little room for the conclusions of the other major characters. Many of them appear only marginally, some never receive proper closure, and the reader is left without knowing what direction their lives have taken.
A significant amount of attention is given to Libby's labor and the birth of her daughters, while many characters who played central roles throughout the series receive only a brief mention or no real conclusion at all. Once again, it feels like a moment included primarily as fan service rather than because it was narratively necessary.
From a storytelling perspective, an effective epilogue should not simply confirm what the audience wanted to see. It should complete the journeys that the story itself began.
When it comes to the characters and their conclusions, I could honestly write an entire essay.
Savannah is probably one of the characters who suffered the most from the way the final part of the novel was handled. This is particularly disappointing because, throughout the series, she had been built as one of the most complex and psychologically interesting characters.
Her conflict was never simply about anger or resentment. Savannah carried the weight of losing her family, a deep sense of abandonment, and an identity fracture caused by Sheffield’s expectations of her. Her complicated relationship with Grayson and Avery was not merely a matter of hostility: it was a defense mechanism, a way of projecting her own pain and anger onto people who, even unintentionally, represented the source of her suffering.
Because of this, I expected JLB to explore this aspect of her character much more deeply. At the very least, I expected a confrontation between Savannah and Grayson, a genuine exploration of their relationship, and a moment of self-awareness from Savannah regarding the way she had displaced her pain onto both him and Avery. More than anything, I expected a scene where this family fracture could finally be addressed and, if not completely repaired, at least acknowledged.
Instead, this entire aspect of her character is almost completely ignored. There is no real resolution between Savannah and Grayson, no meaningful moment where the family confronts what happened and how their trauma shaped the way they relate to one another.
The only part of Savannah’s arc that I felt was truly developed was her relationship with Rohan and the way that, through that relationship, she gradually confronts her avoidant attachment style and her fear of vulnerability. This aspect works because it does not erase her past, but rather shows her choosing a different way of connecting with other people.
However, Savannah was always much more than her romantic relationship. Reducing the conclusion of her arc primarily to her relationship with Rohan means leaving some of the most interesting aspects of her character unexplored: her pain, her relationship with her family, her anger, and the process of finally making peace with her past.
It is barely mentioned that Savannah leaves basketball and college, but we never see what that choice means for her, who she becomes outside of those roles, or what direction she chooses for her future.
One of the most interesting conflicts within Savannah’s character was the way she experienced the pressure of other people’s expectations. She grew up feeling judged because she did not fit the idea of femininity that others had imposed on her: she was considered too harsh, not smiling enough, not conforming enough to what was expected from a girl. The entire exploration of sexism and the impact it had on Savannah is completely ignored in this novel, despite how deeply it had affected her in previous books.
The individual conclusions given to the characters also often felt disconnected from the arcs that had been built throughout the previous books.
The life choices presented in the epilogue frequently seem to appear without a real connection to the characters’ emotional journeys or the conflicts they had spent the series confronting.
For example, Grayson and Lyra return to college, but this choice left me questioning its meaning considering what that experience represented for both of them. In the previous books, college had been a way for them to distance themselves from their reality, to escape their personal and family problems and create space from the lives they were trying to leave behind. Why do they return? Tgb never really explains what this decision represents for them or what it means within their individual journeys.
Even more problematic is Avery’s conclusion. The fact that Avery wanted to attend college at the beginning of the series and maintained that desire by the end of the third book was a genuinely beautiful narrative choice. It represented a connection to the person she had been before the inheritance, to her own desires and identity beyond the wealth and the role she had suddenly been forced to assume.
Instead, her conclusion in this book is primarily centered around her marriage to Jameson, once again shifting the focus away from her individual growth and placing it on her romantic relationship.
The same issue applies to Jameson. One of the most interesting aspects of his arc was his desire to build something that was truly his own, something that was not defined by his relationship with his brothers or by his relationship with Avery. His journey was also about discovering his own identity and independence. For that reason, ending his story primarily through marriage feels like it overlooks the very part of his character that deserved the most attention: who is Jameson when he is not someone’s brother or someone’s partner? This was an aspect that The Brothers Hawthorne explored in a truly masterful way.
An epilogue should not only show where characters end up, but who they have become. In this case, I often felt that the characters were simply assigned new roles without the story fully showing the internal journey that led them to those choices.
Slate is another character who left me particularly disappointed.
JLB introduces many interesting elements about his past and his identity, but none of them are ever truly explored. We are introduced to his “14 terrible things” and the weight of his actions, yet the story never actually examines what those things were, why they happened, what they mean to him, or how they contributed to shaping the person he has become.
Similarly, his family history and his connection to the Blake inheritance and the disks could have provided a great opportunity to build a much more complex character. We never truly understand his family’s history or what the Blake legacy represents to him; instead, we are left with an accumulation of unanswered questions.
The result is a character who, despite being introduced with many potentially fascinating elements, remains static from beginning to end. Beyond the image of the grumpy, seemingly cold boy, the story never gives us the opportunity to truly understand his personality, his motivations, or his inner world.
The only aspect of his character that I felt was genuinely successful was his relationship with Eve. That connection manages to reveal a more emotional and vulnerable side of Slate, one that the rest of the narrative rarely explores.
Knox, on the other hand, is a character we genuinely get to know. In particular, his relationship with Gigi is probably one of the strongest elements of the book: it works because it is not built around romantic attraction, but around the way the two characters are able to truly see and support each other.
However, his conclusion feels incomplete. Knox is introduced with a very interesting foundation, but the story never actually shows us what choices he ultimately makes for himself, what direction his life takes, or how he faces and overcomes the difficulties that had been introduced throughout his arc.
The plot twist revealing that he is Orion’s son once again confuses unpredictability with narrative effectiveness. A plot twist does not work simply because the reader did not see it coming; it needs to serve a purpose within the story, adding something meaningful to the understanding of the character or the themes of the novel.
In this case, however, the revelation seems to exist primarily for shock value, and it is also a choice that I found unnecessary and, honestly, quite uncomfortable.
This connects to a broader issue: the constant use of family connections as the main tool for creating revelations.
At the beginning of the series, these connections could be effective because they added complexity and tied into the central themes of the Hawthorne family. However, when every new development seems to depend on the discovery of another hidden familial connection, the result becomes progressively less surprising and increasingly confusing. The constant addition of family trees, bloodlines, and secret relationships ends up weighing down the plot rather than enriching it.
A clear example of this is Lyra’s family history. A significant portion of the genealogy introduced in the novel feels unnecessary in relation to her personal arc. Her central mystery was already incredibly powerful: a father who kidnapped her from kindergarten and then died by suicide in front of her. This was a traumatic event with enormous narrative and psychological potential.
Yet, instead of truly exploring that wound, the novel expands the mystery further by introducing an enormous web of family connections, without ever providing a satisfying answer to the central question: what actually happened that night? Paradoxically, we end up with far more information about the surrounding mystery, while still lacking a genuine exploration of the event that shaped Lyra’s character.
The handling of the Watcher’s identity also frustrated me. The possibility that Calla was still alive and was the Watcher had much stronger narrative potential. It would have connected already established characters directly to the central mystery and given a more organic meaning to elements that had been introduced earlier.
The final choice involving Emily, however, seems to have been made primarily to create another shocking reveal, but it ultimately replaces a solution that would have been far more consistent with the story’s previous setup.
Eve’s ending, however, is conceptually beautiful, but it does not feel like hers.
Eve was always built around a very different kind of absence: the need to be loved, chosen, and accepted. Her deepest desire was never to have a role in the world or to leave a mark through a greater mission, but to find a family and a place where she truly belonged. What she envies about Avery is not her power or her position, but the love surrounding her: the fact that she has been chosen and that she has people who consider her home.
For this reason, her ending, in my opinion, feels more suited to a completely different type of character: someone whose central conflict had always been the desire to make a difference, change the world, or transform their suffering into a greater purpose.
What is missing the most is the internal transformation that should have led her there. When did Eve actually reprocess her need for belonging? When did she realize that the family she had always longed for was no longer what she wanted? When did her desire shift from “I want to be chosen” to “I want to dedicate my life to helping others”?
The book shows us the final result, but not the psychological journey that should make it believable. I never truly felt that this was the ending Eve had been searching for or the one that properly completed her character arc.
Eve also had a deeply distorted understanding of love, shaped by the experiences she had endured. For her, being loved seemed to mean being the most important person, the only choice, the only one who was indispensable. She had never truly experienced healthy and secure love, and because of that, she struggled to understand that someone could love her deeply without belonging exclusively to her.
This is particularly evident in her relationships with Toby and Slate. Both of them loved her and represented a form of family for her, but Eve could not fully recognize that love because Toby also loved Avery as a daughter, and Slate was beginning to build a connection with Gigi. The problem was never the absence of love; it was Eve’s inability to recognize love as genuine unless it was exclusive.
This could have been the true core of her character arc: learning that her worth does not depend on being the only person chosen, that love does not become smaller when it is shared, and that a family does not lose its meaning simply because it includes other people.
Her journey could have been about learning to accept that kind of love and finally building or becoming part of the family she had always wanted.
Instead, the result is that her ending feels like it belongs to a character who had always wanted to change the world, rather than to Eve herself. It is an ending that can be beautiful in theory, but it does not truly complete the character arc that had been built for her.
Toby's death was actually one of the things I appreciated the most. It brings his character arc to a fitting conclusion, and in his final act, he shows Eve how much he loves her, proving that his love for her was just as genuine as his love for Avery.
The way it happens, and the reasons behind it, work on every narrative level. It hits the reader so hard because it's ultimately a father's act of sacrifice for his daughter—who is only there because, due to his past, she had questioned whether he truly loved her.
It's the perfect tragic irony.
Many of the characters connected to the Hawthorne family seem to be present more because of the nostalgic value they hold for readers than because of a genuine narrative necessity.
Jlb repeatedly emphasizes Oren’s competence and reliability, but these qualities are mainly stated by other characters rather than demonstrated through his actions. Considering how often Avery’s security system has failed throughout the series, I would have expected a deeper exploration of the consequences of those failures. A character responsible for Avery’s protection should have had a stronger emotional and narrative role when she is kidnapped. Instead, his reaction and his sense of responsibility regarding what happened remain surprisingly limited, while the other characters seem to accept the situation relatively quickly without any meaningful confrontation.
Max, who in previous books had played a crucial role as Avery’s emotional support, is also almost completely stripped of her narrative function. Her presence could have offered a different perspective on Avery’s disappearance: anger, fear, helplessness, and concern for someone she was deeply connected to. Instead, she appears very little and does not truly add anything to the story.
The excessive presence of Libby, Nash, and the children feels primarily aimed at providing fan-service moments.
The exception is Zara, who is one of the few secondary characters who is given genuine emotional weight and whose reactions feel meaningful.
Overall, what disappointed me the most was the lack of reactions proportional to the events taking place. Avery has disappeared, an event that should deeply devastate a family and a group of people whose identities have been built around their connections with one another. The novel tells us that they are worried, but it rarely allows us to actually experience that fear, anger, or sense of loss alongside them. The emotions are often told to the reader rather than truly lived on the page.
Alisa’s narrative importance is not in question. Every time she appears, she takes action, makes decisions, coordinates, solves problems, and actively moves the story forward with impressive efficiency. However, she continues to be used primarily as the person who solves everyone else’s problems. She is the character everyone relies on whenever something needs to be organized, understood, or managed, but The Gilded Blade rarely takes the time to explore her own needs and emotions.
More than a person, she is treated as a narrative function. I would have loved for the final book to finally give her the appreciation she deserved, especially considering everything she has done throughout the series.
The romance is handled poorly, with the exception of Rohan and Savannah.
Jameson and Avery (ONLY in this book) lose part of their individuality and become primarily defined as “the other half” of each other.
Grayson and Lyra’s relationship progresses at a pace that makes it difficult to perceive the natural evolution of their bond. Their emotional intimacy feels like that of a couple who has shared years of history, while within the timeline of the story only a few days have passed and we never truly experience the development of their feelings. The narrative revolves entirely around the idea that they are meant for each other, as if it were a predetermined fact. Once again, they seem to be reduced to one another.
The relationship between Nash and Libby continues to present an idea of love that I find problematic. Love at first sight is portrayed as the solution to Nash’s trauma and attachment issues, which had previously been one of the greatest struggles of his character and a major source of his complexity only a few months earlier. The same applies to Libby’s character, who bases her sense of self-worth on Nash’s validation in a way that is very similar to what I discussed earlier regarding Gigi and Slate, but even more pronounced.
More generally, for ALMOST ALL THE CHARACTERS this idea of love at first sight that appears throughout many of the relationships in the series does not feel like love, but rather idealization.
Xander and Max barely even interact; they do not feel like a couple at all. Are they even still together?
Gigi and Slate’s relationship is the one that convinced me the least. I’m sorry, but Gigi spends a large portion of the novel expressing her desire to feel chosen, seen, and wanted, and her arc ultimately resolves through a romantic relationship that develops so quickly simply because he is the first person who is attractive and who recognizes her work and abilities.
Additionally, the way Slate describes constantly observing her is presented by the text as proof of how well he knows her, whereas personally I found it neither romantic nor convincing. Instead, I found it problematic because it risks romanticizing stalking behavior.
Knox and Alisa exist mostly as a promise. The novel repeatedly suggests how well they could work together, but it shows very little of their actual emotional development. The characters talk about their potential, while the reader sees almost exclusively mutual attraction. The epilogue does not even provide a clear indication of where their relationship actually stands.
More generally, in the latest books, Jennifer Lynn Barnes seems to emphasize the idea that when the Hawthornes love, they love absolutely. It is a romantic concept, but it often ends up translating into a loss of individuality. Loving someone does not mean dissolving into them or ceasing to exist as an individual. In fact, the strongest relationships are usually those in which characters continue to have desires, conflicts, and goals that exist outside of the relationship itself.
As a result, the way the Hawthornes love did not feel like an expression of deep, healthy devotion to me, but rather like a form of idealization in which the identity of the individual often disappears within the couple.
I am not referring to Jameson and Avery’s relationship before The Gilded Blade. Their relationship throughout the original trilogy was one of the strongest-written aspects of the series. It was one of the best portrayals of a relationship in the books. What changed, in my opinion, is how their dynamic is handled in this particular installment.
Rohan and Savannah instead was forty meters above every other couple, their writing didn't even seem like that of the other characters.
Many of the narrative choices in this book felt more focused on satisfying fandom expectations than on genuinely serving the story. Another example is Sentimental Knife, whose inclusion seems primarily designed to respond to readers’ enthusiasm surrounding the “Harvard girl” rather than because the character was actually necessary for the narrative.
She is a character who, in herself, could have been interesting, but there was not even enough time to properly conclude the arcs of the main characters, let alone enough space to fully introduce and develop new ones.
She has a personality that feels very similar to many other characters, with goals whose origins are never explored and a moral compass that is introduced without really explaining where it comes from.
Unfortunately, she is a character who is never truly explored.
More broadly, I had the impression that much of the novel relies on the affection readers already have for these characters and on the nostalgia built throughout the previous books, rather than on the journeys they actually undertake within this installment. However, reader attachment cannot replace character writing: a character continues to work only if the text continues to develop them. And all the unresolved threads, such as who caused the blackout, Jameson’s uncle’s favors, a character who barely even had a line, whether Acacia knows about Sheffield... Savannah seemed genuinely affected by the idea of keeping it from her in Glorious Rivals.
Simon could have been a much more significant parental figure for Jameson, and yet that relationship is never explored. Skye being pregnant is an interesting premise, but what is its narrative purpose? What does Skyla represent for all of them?
The problem, in my opinion, also comes from the ambition of the novel itself. If you choose to introduce numerous characters, multiple character arcs, and such a complex mystery, you also take on the responsibility of developing each of these elements with the depth they require. When that is not possible, the risk is that every storyline receives less space than necessary, and the final result feels superficial, rushed, or incomplete.
I have been told that my expectations were simply too high. Personally, I do not believe that was the issue. I expected consistency with the characters that had been built throughout the series, clear and satisfying answers to the mysteries introduced, complete explanations for unresolved questions, and conclusions that respected each character’s individual journey. Those are not unrealistic expectations; they are the narrative promises the series itself made to the reader.
The revelation that many of the events were orchestrated by Alice also remains, in my opinion, incomplete. The novel suggests that much of the story was the result of her manipulation, but it never reconstructs clearly enough the how, when, and why behind it all.
Instead of allowing the reader to connect all the pieces of the puzzle, it leaves the impression that certain explanations were simply left implicit or never provided. This not only weakens the mystery itself, but also reduces the characters’ agency, as they often end up feeling like pieces moving according to a plan that was already written, rather than individuals whose choices genuinely influence the events around them.
If there is one aspect I have always loved about this series, it is the characters. They are the reason I became attached to this universe in the first place.
I love ensemble stories, the kind where every character has their own identity, their own arc, their own desires, conflicts, and relationships that intertwine with those of the others. In my opinion, this has always been one of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ greatest strengths: creating a large cast in which every character feels like they have something meaningful to contribute, and where relationships are not limited to fixed couples or specific groups, but constantly expand and evolve, creating diverse and layered dynamics.
This is exactly why the way the characters were handled in The Gilded Blade disappointed me so much. The problem is not the number of characters; the problem is how that ensemble is managed.
Many character arcs are simplified, rushed, or pushed into the background, and characters who had been built over several books as complex individuals begin to lose parts of what made them unique.
More than anything else, that is what I felt was missing from this book.
I might have forgotten some complaints... But anyway that's it for now.
PS: most of you changed names during my assence and I can't find youu, so if you want to be included please write it down.
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