The Book of Life
Also a reread to prep for Time’s Convert.
Diana and Matthew are back from the past, Emily is dead, Marcus has a girlfriend, and Diana is pregnant. The search for Ashmole 782 is ongoing, but there are bigger things happening, like the reveal that the vampire blood craze is still around and someone is killing a bunch of people (and witches) for an unknown reason. For the last book in the trilogy, there’s a lot to unpack.
For a finale, the addition of another plotline probably wasn’t the best idea. Benjamin and his whole ordeal with the witches came out of left field during a book that could have done without it. There was already so much to cover: Ashmole, the vamp-witch kids, the covenant and the Congregation and everything. Besides that, I’ve made a list of the problems I have with this book:
Matthew. I still hate him. He’s a misogynistic, controlling ass that is unwilling to change for anyone, even Diana. It’s the 21st century and he needs therapy, desperately.
Matthew and Diana. She has no fighting spirit! Harkness keeps saying Diana is this all-powerful witch, but she lets Matthew push her around. She can be mad about it all she wants, but it’s clear that he doesn’t respect her at all, not as an equal in their relationship.
Baldwin. He can eat my entire ass. He does not deserve a redemption arc and I swear to god if he ever gets one, I’ll throw a fit.
Emily. Harkness did her so dirty, and she deserved so much more. She was killed offscreen (the disrespect!) and it takes forever for them to focus on her murder and the why behind it. She had so much potential. Also the ‘bury your gays’ trope was ridiculous in this book. Emily and Hugh and their respective grieving partners are the only gay characters in this book, and half of them are killed offscreen.
This book was so boring! There’s four countries and like 6 different plotlines to wrap up, and it still manages to be a complete snooze fest. The plot dragged. The book also took what I loved about A Discovery of Witches and beats it to death. :) I loved the mix of science and magic, but when you take and entire page to badly explain DNA in the most confusing way possible? No thank you.
Gallowglass and Diana. Ridiculous. Give Gallowglass a happy ending, please.
Now, the things I loved about the book is a much smaller list. Gallowglass is one of the only reasons I kept reading this book. The others were: Fernando, Ysabeau, Marcus, Jack, Phoebe, Miriam, Chris, and Sarah. The rest of them can shove it.
2022 update: The show changed Baldwin’s actor because the original guy was off acting in Amazon’s super secret LOTR show, and I have to say: they did a bad job. I liked the first actor much better. I liked that they didn’t make a big deal of it; they kinda just threw him into it. It was honestly kind of funny.
Trigger warnings: torture, rape, violence, child death, sexual violence, child abuse, miscarriage
⛈⛈☁️☁️☁️
