G. Bianco, 2019
Renée Ahdieh’s The Beautiful Series comes to its conclusion today (December 5th) with the release of the fourth book in the quartet. The Ruined picks up where its predecessor left off and drops readers right back into the world of the Fae and other supernatural beings! The Sylvan Vale and the Sylvan Wyld are at war. Now that the unsteady truce between them has been broken, lines must be drawn. In an effort to protect the weakened Winter Court, Bastien rallies powerful allies and friends in New Orleans to come to their aid. Meanwhile, under protection alongside her injured mother in the Summer Court, Celine is uncertain of whom to trust. She cannot get word to Bastien, and does not understand why he has not returned. When she realizes war between the fey courts is imminent, she journeys with Ali in an effort to find the time traveling mirror and change their fate. But when Celine’s rivals realize Bastien has rallied his allies in the mortal world, they decide to take the fight to him. I honestly felt my expectations for this novel were pretty moderate, but unfortunately, the book ended up falling a bit flat. I liked how fast-paced the story was and how easy it was to fall into the plot again. I also enjoyed seeing all of our favorite characters again and seeing how the events in The Righteous would all combine into a masterful conclusion. However, there wasn’t any clear ending to certain plot lines and half of the minor characters became completely obsolete as the story went on. The story got bogged down with so many random bits of plot that nothing seemed fleshed out enough to leave any real impact on me as a reader. I feel like this book could’ve been much longer and allowed for a more robust story with a great ensemble cast of characters rather than trying to squeeze so much plot into 400 pages and casting aside what could’ve been amazing subplots for the sake of a bizarre and semi-inconclusive ending. I can understand what Ahdieh was trying to achieve with this book and the themes of love, loss, trust, and sacrifice; however, I feel like many fans of this series, including myself, would’ve preferred a more adventurous, thrilling, and more romantic ending for a book that is branded as a YA vampire/supernatural fantasy romance. While I enjoyed my time with this series, I was just hoping for this story to play out in a different way. Ahdieh had the potential to create a wonderful conclusion to this ethereal series, but I ended up finishing the series with way more questions than answers. *I received an ARC from Penguin Teen in exchange for my honest opinion.
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