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2.5 stars! This review will be spoiler free for War Storm, but will contain spoilers from previous books in the series!
Initial thoughts:
I’m happy I’ve finished this series, but for all the excitement I had to see where Aveyard was going to take this, I was let down. I would still recommend this series because my feeling about each individual book vary throughout the series and I think Aveyard is an author worth reading. The ending is satisfying enough in a sense, so you’re not just reading a 4 book series without any payoff. I just had expectations and though some were met, I was mostly left wanting more. The characters felt stagnant, the plot moved too slowly in the beginning then too fast in the end, and the ending itself was okayyy, abrupt, but still good. Things wrapped up in a way that I can see more books coming out of this series, but if there aren't anymore books coming... I don't know how to feel.
Plot:
There were parts that I felt didn’t need to be so long mainly in the beginning/middle area, and there were parts that I think she could’ve drawn out mainly the ending. For example, I didn’t need the romance to be so in my face? I wanted more war scheming, more political maneuvering, more battling! When those juicy tidbits came up, I was all for them! I feel like a majority of this book was meetings and planning, meetings and planning… Alliances were tenuous to start and then they started bouncing around. Then when decisions were finally made and plans turned into action – THAT was when things got spicy. Thankfully, when there were battle scenes, I was on the edge of my seat! Aveyard doesn’t pull punches when it comes to making you think your babies are in danger. I was so excited every time the Scarlet Guard came to the rescue. They are so badass.
The romance is what I was living for throughout this series and I didn’t get the same vibes in this book was with previous books. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting the same happy bubbly romance that was King’s Cage, BUT… I wasn’t expecting their relationship to turn into a lust-fest. I feel like the whole time, the “angst” between these characters is not because they miss their best-friend or confidant, but they miss being in each other’s beds. On the bright side, those scenes were hot and still fun to read.
The ending I both liked and disliked. The final battle was much much too short for my taste. It ended too quickly on all fronts. The build up to this massive battle took longer than the battle itself and I wasn’t particularly on the edge of my seat during that build up either (again here with the author spending too much time on parts that aren’t as interesting). The epilogue was only satisfying from Mare’s POV. I didn’t get my full closure from Iris, Evangeline, or Cal? Like where did their POV’s go in the end? The romance, I’m actually very glad about how they turned out. It was realistic and I think Mare’s decision was important. BUT STILL SAD. Still kinda sad. It wasn’t everything I wanted it to be. It was a bittersweet ending all around.
NOW – I’m left with these feelings that there could/should be more? Like it’s one of those endings where if the author had previously hinted at there being a spin-off, I’d think now, “okay, here’s a good platform to grow off of.” But, I don’t think that was the actual intention here. So you can imagine, I’m sitting here thinking: I WANT MORE.
Characters:
This book has multiple POV’s and while I enjoyed seeing into the minds of Maven and Cal for the first time, their thoughts weren’t particularly original. They were actually pretty repetitive of what Mare’s POV shows of them in the previous books. Iris and Evangeline however were much more intriguing. Surprisingly, and I never thought I’d say this about this series, Evangeline’s POV was my favorite. She’s had one of the best character arcs in this story and the whole time I still felt like she’s stayed true to herself, she didn’t really do a complete 180, but just realized certain parts of her and became less afraid. Seeing into Iris’s mind was intriguing only because she is from the Lakelands and she has this whole entire other culture that was new and fresh for this series. Maven’s POV was pointless… Pointless. I felt like everything we got from his POV was a reiteration of things said in King’s Cage. His brain is just on endless repeat of the same thoughts. And with Mare and Cal ALSO repeating the same things about Maven, too? Yeah, we didn’t really need to see what he was thinking. POV’s I would’ve wanted: Davidson or Farley.
Otherwise, the characters fell kind of short? Everyone was rather bland and… the same? I don’t know quite how to explain this, but they just didn’t really feel like they were growing or changing, just repeating the same things from the pervious books, but in different settings.
Side note, Cam is nearly nonexistent here. I don’t know why that happened, maybe because she was talking about taking herself out of the fight in King’s Cage? But her sassy and crude juxtaposition to Mare was something I missed.
Overall:
Would I recommend this series? After finishing this finale, I’m not quite sure… Personally I’d hate to go through FOUR books just to know that the last book not only doesn’t live up to the greatness of some of the other books in the series, but is maybe my least favorite of them all. But there are many who still loved this ending and the whole series, so I guess if you want to enjoy it for the ride, then yet I’d recommend. Give it a go! I fall quite in the middle regarding this series as a whole, but I'm happy to say that I've finished it and it was not a waste.
I’m glad I finished this series though. I truly truly am happy I read this mammoth of a book because I really did want to know what was going to happen. I had no clue where Aveyard was going to take this story and maybe even continue taking this story? Spin off? I don’t know. I feel like with the way things left off, it could happen, but I’m not chopping at the bit to get my hands on it.