2,5/10 - 1,25/5 Dislike it a lot bc it trashed the potential it had. On itself just really boring. This series would've never been one of my favorites (I'm too old for that) but I had a great time with the first two installments. They were really fun for different reasons so I went into this with high expectations. Sadly this book wasn't good at either of the things that made the first two books fun but it also didn't do something else well. This all to say: it was a massive disappointment. I don’t hate it or anything but it doesn’t hold up to the other two and it was a real chore to finish. -Writing- It’s a YA book for all that it’s worth which is fine, but the progressive values that I appreciated so much in the other books turned into what felt like scrolling on tumblr. People were talking like tumblr posts about social issues to the point that it was unrealistic and preachy. And I say that as a full blown leftist who agrees with all of those things, it’s just that it’s unrealistic for people irl to talk like that. Some things also only work in an abstract, not when it’s about real people. This is the worst in the final chapters where the topic of accountabilty and complicity is handled very poorly. <spoiler> I think it’s a pretty intersting discussion to have about how the normal kalovaxians are complicit and benefit from a colonial system which enslaves the native population. The observation that even the poorest kalovaxians benefit is true and maybe they’re even complicit by not fighting against the system but still, some random fisherman is not to blame! At the end of the day he is also oppressed! And he is not the one deciding that the astreans are to be enslaved and tortured. There is a ddiscussion to have about the complicity but you can’t just say that because you benefit from the system and are complicit that you should be punished for that. Homegirl really made ALL kalovaxians indentured servants aka glorified slaves. Talking about how the entire population benefitted from the system is one thing, to punish them for it is another. It ignores the opression the kalovaxians face from each other entirely. This is a monarchy, not a democracy so the normal civilians don’t have a say anyway. There is nobility, so there are class struggles. Women are oppressed too. It’s not enough to say “not everyone is equally guilty” but then you punish them all anyway. By making them glorified slaves!!! I understand the approach and it would be good if she did it with nobility only maybe but everyone???? Also it’s so unrealistic to have trials about every single one. Look at how that worked out for Nazi Germany. This ignoring of class struggles is also a problem with how the female antagonists are portrayed. In this book we only have female villains and it shifts the blame uncomfortably onto the also oppressed kalovaxian women. Cress and her girls go around killing their abusive husbands (and sometimes their children). The narrative tried so hard to frame Cress as evil that I was lowkey on her side… ofc it's not cool to go around poisoning young girls to make an army but in the end she helped those girls out of an abusive situation and sorry I'm not gonna feel bad for their husbands. Mainly though I felt annoyed because that misandrist storyline felt so forced and over the top. It’s one thing to have a bland villain like the kaiser who is evil for no reason but another to portray the women that kill their abusive husbands and want to free themselves from the shackles of patriarchy as monsters. We have all those women who previously were pretty normal characters and now they’re suddenly laughing madly while killing innocent astreans and children. It felt like the author was saying “hey guys this is a matriarchy but see i don't hate men like cress and her gang”. </spoiler> -Worldbuilding- Ok this was a little complaint of mine in book 2 but now i have to actually talk about it. What the fuck is going on with the scale of things? Astrea has 20k surviving inhabitants??? And an army of like 3k? Guys do you realize how small that is? 20k is the size of a small city and 3k of a big school. In itself that can make sense as there used to be way less humans around in the past, but it doesn't make sense that this small army beat a country that has conquered NINE countries?? If a country is conquering others then that implies a certain size. Sorry, that doesn't check out. Especially since astrea’s army consists of untrained refugees and former slaves. Unrealistic that she got even that many people willing / able to fight in the first place. And those were able to beat trained soldiers ☠️ never. And just because they stormed the castle they didn't immediately win against the entire country, right?? You wanna tell me that was where all of the soldiers were? Just because they freed the castle now not only the entirety of astrea is free but also all those conquered countries?? Also can we talk about how the kalovaxians were seriously conquering those countries just to leave them after some years?? Evil colonialists i know but stupid ones? 😭😭 seriously they did this nine times. That's not on them that's on the author making them stupid fucks like you're telling me NINE countries were unable to fight off those idiots who can't even tell their slaves to keep the castle clean???? THEY ACTUALLY LET THE CASTLE GET DIRTY. and I know nobility in Versailles didn't clean and shat everywhere but they still let their servants clean the place omg. </spoiler> -Characters- I don't think it's very wise to introduce new characters in the final installment of a series when the core characters have already been established and the book isn't even that long. Maile is such a pointless character and I don't understand how she kind of became part of the core group when 1. Nobody likes her and 2. We know nothing about her. I don't give the slightest shit about her and initially I thought she was set up to be an antagonist but somehow she's important now?? <spoiler> Her and Art randomly kissing?? Guys I see the potential but WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MAILE. And we have barely seen her and art interact with anything but animosity. And suddenly they sleep in the same bed and have kissed? Which ngl is also disappointing because Art seemed to be on the ace spectrum and that is sooo rare in books. Taking away that representation for an underdeveloped romance with a character nobody cares about was unnecessary. Esp since there is zero follow up on that anyway. Her whole character didn't provide anything worthwhile to the book, she didn't need to be there.</spoiler> What I honestly didn't mind that much but still noticed was how unimportant the love triangle and generally the romantic relationships became. Both of them didn't get many good scenes just being together, showing why we like them together. Both soren and Blaise feel like unimportant side characters. <spoiler> Soren is basically a lapdog, which isn't that bad, but also makes him a bit boring cause he doesn't confront theo at all and he just says yes to everything and is constantly talking about how he has to repent for his crimes. But still, the few interactions they have are cute. Nothing to remember but also not bad. It just lacks a bit of spice (not in the sexual way). Blaise on the other hand gets more to do. I think his one exploding scene and his regret + theo's fear were a nice way to show how such impulsive reactions should be handled so they don't get abusive BUT it didn't feel in line with Blaise. Like, he already had enough going on with his impending death and handling his powers. It just felt like an easy way to get him out of the love triangle. And the rest of the book was just spent with him moping around theo and trying to be better. His death ofc came to no one's surprise, which isn't the point but it also felt a bit unnecessary and personally i didn't feel anything (I'm a crier). </spoiler> But I feel like my biggest complaint is how underdeveloped cress and theo's relationship was. Considering how much time is spent on the two together in this book there is a surprising lack of substance. Their relationship has been complex and twisted from the start and I really liked the concept of what could've been done here. But their relationship felt LESS developed at the end of the book compared to the start. <spoiler> even years after the first book i still remember that one line where theo realizes that cress loves her but only in the way one loves a pet. It's just such an interesting dynamic. They “are heart's sisters” but right from the start they have been on opposite sides. Cress helped her but still watched theo being abused by the kaiser, refusing to break the system that harmed her friend - and she kept benefitting from it. Her father killed theo's mother and later on theo killed her own father and left cress scarred physically as well, putting them on opposite sides for real. There are so many parallels and contradictions between the two. I would've loved a deeper dive into this. Instead we get those senseless dreams that are mostly for the plot and give next to no character/ relationship building. The little we get is cress missing theo but theo being sick of cress right until the last scene of the book. Completely one sided. I understand that cress has done horrible things but I would've expected theo to feel ANYTHING towards her past heart's sister. Instead she fails to give her any compassion despite her having become insane similarly to Blaise. Why can she extend her grace to one but not the other? The final scene in the cell was the worst too. Cress' last words being how she wants to see theo in the after and theo answering Cress wouldn’t be there is crazy and theo says it without an ounce of sympathy. Your ex bestie is about to die and that's all you say??? I expected a bitter sweet goodbye. And AFTER theo spent the entire book feeling nothing but contempt towards cress, not even granting her a heartfelt goodbye, in the last chapter she spouts some shit about how she doesn't know yet how she'll be able to live in a world without her??? Girl what?? Where was that energy 10 pages ago when she was on her death bed? Ngl, I cried for cress. Esp because of how cold her death was. In the end she obv wasn't a good person but she also was just a teenage girl whose mother left her and whose father was killed by her best friend and she herself poisoned by the same best friend, which left her physically scarred, made her insane and would've led to her death ultimately. Like, she was obviously a victim too???? I wanted a bittersweet tragedy and not cress becoming a caricaturish misandrist. Not a complaint butttt can we pls talk about how queer coded their relationship was?? I don’t want to turn every friendship into something romantic but guys they dream about each other, Cress pines after Theo and there is knife to the throat scene!!! Just saying, it would’ve been so interesting if Cress had a one sided crush on Theo. Would’ve put their problems in book 1 into a different perspective too. </spoiler> -Plot/Pacing- I gaslighted myself into thinking I was in a reading slump but NO, IT WAS THE BOOK. It took so long for anything to happen, it feels like the plot only really started at page 300 (my edition was 380 pages) and basically anything that happened previously could've been cut down to half the length. This story was just a giant nothingburger, as the younglings say. Most of it is a repeat-variation of trying to free the mines until you finally get the showdown battle and then it's a massive letdown. <spoiler> literally what about the mines really mattered? Maybe the thing with cress’ mother and the velastra being introduced and showing how evil cress had become. But you know, things don't necessarily have to be conductive to the overall plot IF THEY ARE FUN. But this wasn't. The siege of winning back the mines wasn't interesting at all. And regarding velastra, what a weird and pointless plotpoint??? Mindcontrol in any capacity is a way too severe topic to handle on the sidelines. I'm thinking of another book series, a duology where a mind control drug is introduced right at the start and it's an important topic of discussion. You can't just introduce a mind control drug for funsies!! And here it didn't even matter, the only real impact it had, was that laius killed himself, but he could've also just been killed by someone else, and that cress took the hostages and killed them using it but here it also could've just been a guard who killed them. Or you know, even better, a berserker!!!! A concept that has been present since book 1!!! It was just so fucking pointless and if you cut out the velastra the story doesn't change at all. I’ve already complained about the dream sharing regardring the relationship development and as I’ve said those dreams were mostly a plot device but that was not done well. Most of the time it’s just Theo trying to get information out of Cress but that leads nowhere but then it really goes downhill. First Cress finds out Theo is alive offscreen which is so so disappointing cause imagine the drama if Theo was suddenly standing before Cress after appearing in her dreams and it all comes crashing down on Cress. That would’ve been so interesting. But no, none of that, Cress finds out off screen and doesn’t react except being vengeful. But the real problem is that Theo doesn’t kill or attempt to kill Cress. She could’ve done that so many times and even had her knife at Cress’ throat once but she doesn’t do it because….. yeah why?? Because someone else would replace her?? HUH?? What a shitty reasoning. I get it in principles but the thing is that cress is insane and is turning women into powerful evil mass murderers. Those women literally attacked the air mine and caused thousands of deaths!! And even after that theo doesn’t kill Cress. Sorry but I don’t think some rando replacing her could and would do the same. It also means that Theo has to fight someone with incredibly strong powers instead of some old man who can’t go to the bathroom alone. Why would you want that??? Especially when they are about to storm the castle!! Why would you want to have a stronger enemy to fight there instead of chaos and disorder because nobility are fighting amongst each other for the throne!??!! That would’ve been the perfect opportunity. And that stupid decision is the only reason why Blaise has to die. That’s why his death feels so unnecessary. If Cress and her women hadn’t been there and the whole hostage situation hadn’t happened then Blaise wouldn’t have had to die. And what a massive disappointment the final battle was. I'll say the storming of the castle was probably the best and most interesting part of the story but cress vs theo was soooo bad. They didn't even fight against each other!!! Theo got her fire powers for no reason other than to fight against Cress and then never does it. She trains to fight Cress just to never do it. Ugh, I'm so disappointed. And then it’s all wrapped up with tumblr talk and some unrealsitic worldbuilding. </spoiler> -Conclusion- This just felt like when an author just wants to wrap up the book and rushed the final chapter but instead it’s the whole book. The majority of what happens in this book is boring and leads to nothing. The only thing that really matters is the final chapters of the book and like three lines to explain some changes. The characters turn into tumblr posts and there are new characters without depth or meaning while the older characters are neglected. All the potential the book had that was set up in the other two went nowhere. One of the worst finales I’ve ever read. It’s a boring book on its own but it’s horrible in finishing the story.

LEST DIESES BUCH!! So ein Hammer Buch!Ich liebe den Schreibstil,die Charaktere einfach alles an diesem Buch ist perfekt. Und diese Charakterentwickung omg wow einfach wow. Ich vermisse die Buchreihe jetzt schon und diese Reihe ist zu einer meiner Lieblingsreihen geworden.

<blockquote><b><i>"There's no shame in breaking...You just have to put yourself back together again."</i></b></blockquote>A solid end to a trilogy that took me by surprise. I first started Ash Princess not expecting much, but color me surprised when I found myself enjoying the world and the characters as the story went on. Theo is such a great MC, she has an amazing story arc with a solid development through the books - you can see her becoming a leader and a Queen in her own right. In this novel, especially, she's at the top of her game, understanding when sacrifices need to be made, thinking of the whole, and acting coldly and rationally instead of acting on emotion. The rest of the crew is just as great, they all have a role to play, especially in this book, and we get to see more of Heron in action, as well as my favorite couple ErikxHeron. The story goes into a predictable route (I mean, I guessed a character death by halfway through book 2), but that didn't put me off at all - even knowing what was probably going to happen, I was still interested in reading more. I liked how everything wrapped up, the decisions Theo made at the end, especially concerning the Kalovaxians and Cress. I had an issue with a couple of things, that prevented me from giving this final book 5 stars: the epilogue and the introduction of a very unnecessary character. Maile is the most annoying, useless character in this book by far - she was introduced to create a bit of dissent among our group, be annoying, appear in about a dozen scenes, and be paired up with a more important character with whom she has NO chemistry. We don't see the pairing being developed at all, is just tossed at us and we're expected to buy it. And talking about useless things....let's talk about how that epilogue shouldn't exist because there's NO NEED for it. It doesn't add anything new, no valuable information, there isn't even a jump to the future to see how our characters are going. The final scene from the final chapter was a perfect ending on its own, there was no need for more. These are minor stuff compared to the rest, but I need to point it out. Overall, it was a solid ending, and I'm gonna miss these characters and this world, more than I thought I would when I first started.