The Empress

29/12/2021: First Read I'm done. I'm SOOOOO DONE! this book... THis-tHiS thing!!!! Arghhhhh what did i just read i can't possibly put my thoughts into words. Since i turned teh last page only a minute ago. And my hands are TREMBLING from all the twists. SJ Kincaid has my heart and blood pounding. I NEED THE NEXT BOOK NOWWWWW! But i'm still fearful. Because i just don't know what will happen next. Nothing can be anticipated even when you think you know what's going to happen that's when the author has you. Ughhh i think i can't speak or even properly articulate what i'm thinking. ME NOT KNOW WORDSSSS NO MORE 13/11/2022: Second Read For fuck's sake! This book is tragedy in its purest form. 25/12/2023: Third Read I will NEVER get bored of this book. The twists and turns and betrayals are all as impacting as the first time I read them.

good plot developments, I just don't really feel all that attached to any character

I need the third book already!

*4.5 re-read: 4stars

(Oct. 2018) This book’s ratings are lower than the first in the series, but I found it quite a satisfactory sequel. If you are expecting the non-stop action of the first, you might have to adjust your expectations, simply because we are at a completely different point in the story line — but if you stick with it, I think you won’t be disappointed. There are a lot of unexpected turns of events, The MCs go through a lot and I think the way they deal with it and how they emerge from it all adds a lot of dimension to their characters. I really enjoyed it — it still has that mix of sci-fi, romance, action, and just a hint of thriller, and it kept me guessing until the very end. I also went though a whole battery of feelings while reading this, and was a bit of a mess by the end! I am looking forward to the last book in the trilogy, and I think I’m probably going to want to re-read this in the future! It’s just a hair below because of some pacing issues in the first half, but I’m going to round this up to 4 STARS because it’s good enough for me to want to get my own copy!

2.5/5 stars RTC

(3.5) i am..... emotional .... to say the least.

I picked this book up a few months ago and couldn’t quite get into. I tried picking it up again and the first 150 pages were hard to get into but I done what I should have done all those months ago was push on because holy smokes this book is so fucking good! The second half of this book was so action packed and holy fuck what was even happening. And the ending. Wow. Just wow. I have no words. I need the third book like right now!

3.25 Stars Characters *** It was kind of hard to keep up with everyone this time! There were so many personality changes and "growth" that it made it hard to understand the emotional rollercoasters that everyone was going on. Cover ** I reallllly don't like anything about this cover except for the colors. Pace **** So fast-paced, just like the first book! I love that aspect of these. They're super quick reads! Plot *** The plot changed so many times, so many ups and downs, I had a hard time keeping up with what was actually going on in the story. Every time I thought I had an idea what was going on, it would completely flip around. Which normally I like (I liked that about the first book for sure) but I think this took it a little too far. Writing **** I love Kincaid's writing style and her WORLD BUILDING. I raved about it in my review of the first book and it continued here. So much great world building, I absolutely loved that. Enjoyment *** It was good and I did enjoy it but I did have some issues with the plot and the characters that kept me from absolutely loving the story as a whole. Cry bonus - 0 Overall - I'm excited to see where The Nemesis takes this because that ending was WACKY. There is so much going on and I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around everything.

This book has content warnings for drug addiction, self-harm and thoughts of suicide. The Diabolic blew me away on the first time reading it. Even upon reread I loved it. There was just something that compelled me. Tyrus and Nemesis are among the smartest protaginists I ever read about and absolutely loved following them and their plans and schemes. Even though I liked how the first book ended I was exicted about the sequel and wanted to see what comes next. As you can tell by my star rating I was dissapointed by this book. This book took the world in a lot of different and interesting directions. There were some rituals explained that were weird to me and also kind of pointless. The plot felt a bit all over the place to me. It felt like the author tries to cram too much into one book. Even though it all made sense I just feel like we moved to quickly from one thing to another and we never got to deal with any of the consequences of something because of it. The plot went into a lot of interesting directions but we never spent enough time with them to really get into what makes them so interesting. For the rest a lot of my favourite character's personality were changed completely without us actually seeing the developement to it. That happened mainly because we moved so quickly between different events, which left no time for actual developement. This just left me to lose all my love for these characters. I will continue on into this series, because there is only one book left but I'm going with very low expectations.

*closes the book* WHAT *takes a deep breath* THE *almost throws it the device the wall but doesn’t* FUCK! Kincaid, you did it. You did it again. You held my heart in your hands and squished it like a slime. As my dearest Julia was asleep, I was suffering on those sentences. Then she woke up and gave me an evil “I told you so.” laugh. You enjoyed my suffering, didn’t you Ju? Why is this series, this woman is so underrated? Her writing style is amazing. She plays with the words as she plays with your emotions. Seriously, I shouldn’t have gotten that attached because I knew it would ruin me. When you think “Okay, everything is well right now”, Kincaid goes like “umm I don’t think so!”. The hype is never over, you always feel like you’re walking on thorns while reading. It’s never predictable so the page either breaks or relieves you. Most of the time, it breaks. I lost the count of how many times I’ve said “idk what i was expecting but this wasn’t it.”. If I have trust issues, this series is the reason. I don’t know if I have a crush on Nemesis or Tyrus. Both? Both. Both is good. I tried to read this in light speed because I was so excited for 3rd book coming out but online classes got me busy. Did I open the class on one tab and kept reading on other one? Maybe.

I’m rating this 3.5 stars. But rounding up due to my actual shock at the ending. I enjoyed the plot of The Diabolic better than The Empress. This book had me frustrated almost the whole time, but kind of in a good way? The definition of ‘if it could go wrong, it will.’ That’s all I’m going to say. Each book in this series has left me feeling less mentally stable so I’m terrified of what’s about to happen in the finale Nemesis. But I will be starting it tonight.

2.5