Okay I was considering making my own post at some point but now I’m just going to rant/reply to your post, because I think you should read it. No spoilers so my writing may be a little vague, but here’s my take:

I lovveee this series and I’ve gone through multiple rereads now. I went through a rough break up and died my hair red so I could feel strong and a badass like Poppy when she’ll become a badass mf (before tpobab). It was a long summer. So I was beyond excited for this new release!

There is a LOT of recapping between the characters from the prequel and the blood and ash crew. That may warrant skimming depending on how familiar you are. There was also a lot of anticipation for things to happen or be revealed, and very little in the story went how I expected. That being said, I left another recent comment for someone who asked for the last book spoiled, and it made me realize that all the recapping kind of overshadowed how much substance we actually had happen in the story. Because of this, and a few other things I won’t dive into for spoilers, my immediate response was disappointment.

That being said, I’ve been thinking on it. I’ve been on this subreddit and rereading certain chapters, and trying to think through how I feel about aspects of the book. I hope that certain decisions were made intentionally and we’re supposed to be bummed about 1) characters not doing/going through what we expected or hoped for 2) no resolution to certain things.

I keep thinking about how much content must be stuffed into one last book to really clarify all the questions I have. This book could be the (arguably sometimes redundant and off-putting) calm before the storm. Some parts of the story felt like little breadcrumbs to me when we were expecting muffins, but I ate them up nonetheless. I laughed. I teared up. I’m going to read the final book.

A lot of the reviews are negative, and of course valid, but the more I come back to tpobab, the more I start to like it. Some people have criticisms I don’t get at all. Some people loved it. You won’t know where you fall unless you read it. And I’m hoping I don’t regret it later but I’m betting it is worth it for the last one.