I received an eARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
If you read Gearbreakers and loved it, you’ll likely enjoy this book too. If you were on the fence at all about your enjoyment of Gearbreakers, it’s probably best if you skip this conclusion.
I was frustrated at the ending of the first book in this duology but had generally enjoyed it so I decided to give the sequel a chance. I figured that the sequel would provide a chance to see how Mikuta’s writing had matured and a more satisfying ending than that of the first book. I was unfortunately proven wrong.
Many of the issues from the first book continued through this one. I also found the pacing of this book to be horrifically confusing and extremely frustrating. Until about 60% of the way through this novel, I was following what was going on for the most part. After that point, all sense of pacing disappeared. Chapters randomly jump weeks to months ahead after significant events instead of sticking with these characters through moments that would show who these characters even truly are outside of a fight.
The plot twists in this book were either painfully obvious far before the reveal or fully out of left-field and left me blindsided. I didn’t feel like any of the reveals were satisfying or really clarified anything within the world-building of the book. They existed to shock the reader and then be mostly swept away soon after. Despite the overwhelming amount of death in this book, the stakes never felt major for either of the main characters, in part because tension never really had the chance to build. They were thrown from one fight to the next to the next, and any moments of doubting their survival were almost immediately dispelled.
I was hoping this book would deliver on the payoff of a final face-off with Enyo where Sona’s decisions came full circle, instead there was no real final battle or face-off, just a conversation and what I found to be a severely disappointing conclusion. The ending is extremely underwhelming and left me saying “That’s it? That was all that needed to happen to make everything better this entire time?” which was definitely not the takeaway I desired.
It’s not a terrible conclusion, but it’s definitely not the improvement over the first book that I had hoped for either.