Cinci destine întunecate by Kendare Blake
I finished another fantasy series and I’m somewhat disappointed by this finale. The happy ending was perhaps too rosy and I don’t think some of the characters deserved their fates.
This book was really hard to get into, unlike the other books in the series. It was incredibly character based which got tiresome and frustrating, who wants to constantly hear about Katharine’s battle with the dead queens? I didn’t for sure.
The whole book kept talking about a war between the queens, but one battle is clearly not a war. I feel like I was robbed of a true war and seeing the sacrifices made by the characters. The only person who seemed to sacrifice themself was Mirabella which bothers me.
I was waiting for an epic battle, not just a slaughter because of the dead queens. It was rather anti-climatic, especially having Arsinoe leaving for most of the battle to hunt Katharine. I’m disappointed by the confrontation between Katharine and Arsinoe, it was too easy for Arsinoe.
I feel like this whole book over-hyped the side effects of using black magic and yet there weren’t any clear sacrifices or consequences. Arsinoe didn’t even seem to understand that the consequences could be disastrous, clearly because there hadn’t been any disasters.
Mirabella is such a complex character and I really was frustrated that she was murdered, out of all the queens, I think she deserved to live the most. Arsinoe was too impulsive and Katharine is way too childish. She always tried to do what was best for the island, never what would keep her alive. She was incredibly self-sacrificial, she reminded me somewhat of Rhysand from the ACOTAR series.
The one character that piqued my interest was Pietyr and I truly love him to be honest. He was almost dead for over half of the book and it was rather annoying. When he woke up, he kept dropping bombs about Katharine. It was clear that he was still infatuated with her, but he didn’t trust her and he didn’t think she was a good leader due to her corruption by the dead queens. He didn’t even try to stop Arsinoe killing his love, which takes a whole different level of maturity to handle.
I really couldn’t stand Jules or Emilia. They were both so fixated on defeating Katharine and going after the throne that they didn’t even seem to have any other facets of their personalities. I found them to be problematic as well, especially their relationship. They have major problems communicating and it affects other people when they argue. They were constantly in that phase of a friendship where they have no clue whether their feelings are reciprocated. It got old in the previous book, but in this one it was absolutely idiotic.
This book was so slow and melodramatic that I truly got bored while reading it. I kept waiting for something to happen. When the action started to pick up the pace, it was confusing and the writing was unclear. The lack of clarity may be due to the translation of the book, but I doubt it.
I’m not even sure what else to mention. I’m glad I finished this series and I know that the first book was the best of them all. I can’t wait to read more from this author. All in all, this is a great fantasy series and I would recommend it. It isn’t the best series I’ve read this year, but I was entertained by it most of the time.
