Amy Tintera

With the romance of The Selection and the epic stakes of Red Queen, Amy Tintera’s New York Times-bestselling Ruined trilogy continues with the thrilling young adult fantasy Avenged. Emelina Flores has come home to Ruina. After rescuing her sister, Olivia, from imprisonment in rival kingdom Lera, Em and Olivia together vow to rebuild Ruina to its former glory. But their fight has only begun. Olivia is determined to destroy everyone who acts against Ruina. Em isn’t as sure. Ever since Em posed as Prince Casimir’s betrothed in Lera, she’s started to see another side to this war. And now that Cas has taken the throne, Em believes a truce is within reach. But Olivia suspects that Em’s romantic feelings for Cas are just coloring her judgement. Em is determined to bring peace to her home. But when winning the war could mean betraying her family, Em faces an impossible choice between loyalty and love. Em must stay one step ahead of her enemies—and her blood—before she’s the next victim in this battle for sovereignty.

Avenged

arwen

i know this book doesn't deserve 4 stars but it's my comfort trilogy okay?

Sally Salinas

Lila Harrison

Last year Ruined was a book I enjoyed greatly, but I must say, Avenged was the push I needed to cement this as one of my favorite series! Avenged didn't falter or slow, widely avoiding the Second Book Slump. There's so much to love about this sequel, from the romance to the action to the politicking! Here's why I loved Avenged by Amy Tintera...
[Review continued at Hardcover Haven]

izzy

decimal rating: 4.29 stars

oh my stars, avenged was so fantastic!! the book totally surprised me in different ways and introduced new depths and nuance into existing characters and elements. it was definitely a major step up from ruined, and manages to tackle and fix the issues in the previous book. also, spoilers for ruined + avenged ahead, so go and read the books first unless you don't mind. :) 

avenged starts off at the aftermath of the huge final battle that happened at the end of ruined. already i like how this book is showing how the fallout affects the characters instead of just time-skipping ahead or pretending that there aren't consequences from a whole war. em, olivia, and aren are in ruina, trying to rebuild their kingdom. prince cas is at fort victorra dealing with the death of his parents and the fact that his cousin jovita wants to dethrone him. jovita thinks that cas is not fit to be king since he sympathizes with em and the ruined. 

em and olivia form a "diarchy," which is like a monarchy but there's two queens/rulers (and they don't have to be married.) i have literally never seen this done in a ya fantasy before so it was interesting to see em and olivia try to come mutual agreements as queens despite their much different ideologies. while em values diplomacy over warfare, olivia is willing to do anything and everything, especially using her ruined powers to kill. actually, that's pretty much her de facto solution. 

as em and olivia bond and begin to rebuild what's left their family and home, their loyalties to each other begin to waver. em is torn choosing between olivia, who's quickly becoming ruthless in declaring war on lera, and cas, the boy she loves that's just inherited the lera throne. although, predictably, i know that em will end up choosing cas in the end, amy tintera does a great job of portraying em's struggle realistically, instead of letting her just choose her love interest quickly. instead, em looks at the picture beyond them, and makes decisions for the good of her people, the ruined. ideally, em wants a peaceful truce between lera and ruina, but olivia thinks that em's judgement is clouded by her attachments to cas. 

since most of this book does not take place in the lera palace, i think that this book signficantly improved on the worldbuilding. we get to see bits of olso, prince august's kingdom, and more of ruina and lera. also the magic system is expanded on as olivia and aren's magical capabilities are brought to light for a significant portion of the book. olivia teaches aren to disconnect, so he's a stronger Ruined, but to what cost to him? and aren discovers something else, the amplification of his Ruined magic by humans, that could make him much stronger than olivia. 

oh, yeah, along the way, em and olivia attempt to ally themselves with olso, and that goes terribly. this alliance would require em to marry prince august of olso, and that's one of the decisions that tears between at her loyalty to her people and her love for cas. prince august is so irritating. he's absolutely the worst at negotiation, but i liked how he was way less stupid than the people at the lera palace. when em betrays him (kinda obviously), he actually figures this out pretty quickly and moves to action. 

some of the other improvements that i saw in avenged over ruined was how the side characters were better fleshed out. em and cas are amazing as always both as love interests and individual characters, and i enjoyed the developments in their relationship. also prince cas, i mean king cas, has a lot more responsibility on his plate now than book one, and it was super interesting to see him begin to change and grow into the strong leader he is at the end of book three. but avenged also gives the others a chance to shine too. 

while ruined was third person limited to em and cas, avenged introduces two other points of view: aren and olivia. besides their struggle with magic, this book adds new layers and depth to their characters. in ruined, aren is a friend and guard who's character pretty much just revolves around helping em and olivia is largely a mcguffin that em is trying to save. you don't know anything about olivia the entire book until the end. but in avenged, we dive into their minds and experience the world the way they do. 

aren becomes a complex character struggling with his magic, with his budding romance with iria, and with overcoming his prejudice for lera. aren is a powerful ruined, but he's actually trying to tackle the long standing hatred between lera and ruina. i feel like this provides a strong contrast to olivia, who's plently stubborn in her ways. also aren and iria!! they're so amazing together, and i love their relationship so much but i'm so, so shattered by the ending. i wish there was more of iria in the book, both looking at her romance with aren but also her friendships with em and the other ruined. oh, also, galo and mateo play a bigger role in this book too, which only later expands in book three. 

also i really appreciate how there's no freaking love triangle. em is pretty much never interested in august and expresses that it would be purely political. aren and em are just best friends, and same for violet and cas. instead of making a love triangle for drama and tension, amy tintera builds strong, supportive, healthy friendships, especially in aren and em. they've been friends since childhood, and have a very strong, understanding bond. they support each other. they trust each other. 

and then, olivia flores herself. she's the most stubborn person ever, and she represents the unwillingness to change. olivia is such an interesting villain, and i think part of this is because she has a perspective. amy tintera shows us inside olivia's mind and her thought processes. i know olivia is not somebody we should be rooting for, but i love her as a character so much. she's complex, terrifying, and so wonderfully crafted and written. one of the things i appreciate is that it's not her Ruined magic corrupting her or something shallow like that. no, it's her choices, and over and over, em gives her an easy way out that doesn't involve murder, but she actively chooses to keep fighting. 
olivia is such a wonderfully written villain, but also somewhat sympathetic. at the same time, she's also just a terrified teenager who misses her sister after spending like over a year trapped in fort victorra. i so badly want to redemption arc for olivia, but i don't think it's gonna happen.

okay, i tried to be less spoilery in this review, but i just have to talk about the ending, specifically what happened to iria. i didn't expect to care about iria this much in book one, but i felt so, so shattered when she got arrested by her home country. iria totally didn't deserve this, all she was doing was protecting aren. and then he promises that he will find and break her out of prison in olso. you better keep your promises, aren. but also, understandably, he feels torn between choosing to rescue iria or helping his people. i feel like aren and em are really similar people in many aspects too, actually. they're both fiercely loyal and driven in protecting the ruined, even when it clashes with being with the people they love. 

at the end of the book, both aren and em are left with difficult choices that mirror each other: choosing between what's best for their people or for themselves and their loved ones. 

although i would say typically the middle book in a trilogy is my least favourite, this book blew my expectations and is so much better than the first book. even though it's still predictable, it greatly improves on most of the flaws from the first book. i would really recommend this book!!

Prince Casimir has taken the throne in Lera and Emelina is back in Ruina, but brokering peace between the two warring kingdoms might mean betraying her family in this outstanding YA high fantasy sequel to Ruined, suitable for fans of Sarah J Maas.

Ruined 2

Nikki Fowler 

Umm so that ending...
I really enjoyed this book and the characters especially Em and CAS :D
Can't wait for the next book!

Haya

Ashton Reed

I’m going to put everything after this in a spoiler bracket just in case there are any spoilers from the first book… I repeat, there is a first book. If you have not read the first book, VENTURE NO FURTHER.

Now, onto the good stuff.

(view spoiler)[ YAYYY I’m so happy you’ve decided to read the second book of this awesome, entertaining series!! 

I’m going to make this short-and-sweet, because if you’re here, I really think you should continue this series. The characters are deep, the forbidden romance is just so good, and the world and magic system are so interesting! 

I will say, the first half wasn’t nearly as good as the second half. I started losing interest a little, and the characters were acting insane! I was getting fed up with how dumb they were. They were making mistakes left and right, and I wanted to pull my hair out. bUT it all turned around, and then me was happy again :)

Also, my least favorite thing happened. One of the characters told another character he had thought something since they had met. NOOO you didn’t, I was in your head since you met them. You were not thinking that. Period. That gets me so fired up haha. (hide spoiler)]

Ok, honestly I’m done. I’m still catching up on reviews, and it’s been a while since I read this one. Overall, I still recommend this series, and I can’t wait to pick up the conclusion and see how it all turns out!





Oh, and if you enjoyed this review, be sure to follow me here on Goodreads or on my bookstagram @ashton_reads for more of my craziness and book recs! Thanks a bunch!

Gianna Kristen

Rachel Thorn

Ashley shackelford

Natalee

Viviane 

Campbell Berry

Luana Knorst

Madelynn snobl

Ashley Holstine

With the romance of The Selection and the epic stakes of Red Queen, Amy Tintera’s New York Times-bestselling Ruined trilogy continues with the thrilling young adult fantasy Avenged, now in paperback. Emelina Flores has come home to Ruina. After rescuing her sister, Olivia, from imprisonment in rival kingdom Lera, Em and Olivia together vow to rebuild Ruina to its former glory. But their fight has only begun. Olivia is determined to destroy everyone who acts against Ruina. Em isn’t as sure. Ever since Em posed as Prince Casimir’s betrothed in Lera, she’s started to see another side to this war. And now that Cas has taken the throne, Em believes a truce is within reach. But Olivia suspects that Em’s romantic feelings for Cas are just coloring her judgement. Em is determined to bring peace to her home. But when winning the war could mean betraying her family, Em faces an impossible choice between loyalty and love. Em must stay one step ahead of her enemies—and her blood—before she’s the next victim in this battle for sovereignty.

Avenged

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