"So� what was the point of this story? What was Kuang trying to show us through Rin?

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A FEW MAJOR SPOILERS.

I really don’t know how to feel about how this series ended. This book essentially renders Rin’s entire journey pointless. We followed her and her friends through all these HORRIFYING struggles that war brought them for three books, just for them to die and lose it all at the very end. Nezha being the lone survivor might be the worst part of it all. It doesn’t matter how you twist it, his survival is just so pointless and unsatisfying. Even if you claim “death is easy, surviving is hard�, I can’t imagine it’ll be that hard. He pretty much got what he wanted, after all. And at the expense of Rin, Kitay, and Venka all dying.

The way Kuang somehow always found a way for Rin to not kill Nezha when she had the perfect chances, just got more annoying each time it happened because there was NO reason to leave him alive over and over again. They literally pointed out that wars don’t end if you leave your enemies alive, and yet�???? It’s just a very bad writing choice, in my humble opinion. The most bizarre thing was when Rin, Kitay, and Nezha spent that night together after she “won� the war (this “win� btw, is another immensely unsatisfying narrative choice, but seeing as the book kept going for a while still, it’s tolerable) and then they just let him go the next morning claiming they’d kill him if they saw him again. Why didn’t they just kill him right then and there??? It’s so nonsensical. OF COURSE he proceeded to cause them all kinds of trouble afterwards.

It just all feels hollow in the end. This was a story about fighting against racism, oppression, injustice, prejudice� fighting for freedom. The oppressed vs their oppressors. Gods vs arrogant humans. And somehow, the oppressive humans came out on top. The oppressors really just won in the end after three books of brutal war. I don’t believe Nezha will fix anything, of course he won’t. He’s a single useless idiot, a pet to the Hesperians who got too much focus in this finale book considering he was never the main threat. The Hesperians were, and yet they were just in the background. Nezha and Vaisra were just puppets. Rin should’ve killed Nezha and it should’ve just been Rin/Nikara vs the Hesperians in the end. The Hesperians don’t need Nezha, I don’t believe they’ll ever respect him or take him seriously because there’s no reason to. So, again, why did he of all people survive the series? What even was the point of this story? It feels like a complete waste of Rin’s tragic and grueling journey that seemed poised to be one of the most empowering character arcs I’ve ever seen, but ended up essentially being a hopeless struggle from beginning to end.

It’s kinda funny how Kuang was trying to make it seem like Nezha got this terrible outcome simply by surviving and being alone as if that wasn’t always in the cards. Why was he so shocked and mad at Rin for dying??!? You’ve literally been trying to kill her, leading an army dropping whole bombs on her and her people. His reaction to her and Kitay dying was so bizarre, as if it never once occurred to him how many times he and the Hesperians almost killed her. As if somehow, him being alone is something new to him. Rin and Kitay’s deaths didn’t make him suddenly alone. He already was and It was always going to remain that way. "

"3.5/5 but a rare case when I'm going to round down, because having this as a 4 star doesn't feel right.

This not the book I wanted or had much interest in getting. Kuang made a lot of choices that made me roll my eyes - Rin gets dumber than a block of cheese for half this book, plotlines are dropped entirely, characters are killed off-screen because she didn't have a use for them anymore, the villains having a seeming huge shift in motivation that is never made much clearer than "because they're bad now", not enough time spent on characters that are not Rin, depicting a war with the most bare bones details possible, etc.

But what I think her goal is in this novel, and series in general, is still impressive. I read most of this book in a day even though those elements bothered me because I was still engaged. I thought the second half especially was very good. This series is just...not what I wanted it to be based off the first two books, and Kuang has different interests than I do. Her characters became obvious stand-ins for the themes she wanted to explore and because of that, I don't think their actions always made a lot of sense, and we are pretty reliant on just accepting how we are told these characters feel about each other and not given a lot of evidence for why they would feel that way.

So, I'm vaguely disappointed, but it still made me think. It still made me appreciate what Kuang was going for; exploring the trauma of war, of colonialism, of genocide. There were still badass moments, and great fight scenes. So all in all...still a good book."