Falling Kingdoms
Young Adult Fiction
Penguin
February 6, 2018
Audiobook
400
As two lethal elemental gods set out to destroy Mytica, sworn enemies must become allies in the final fight to save the kingdoms in the thrilling conclusion to the Falling Kingdoms series by "New York Times"-bestselling author Rhodes.
Falling Kingdom: ★★★☆☆ Blog & Goodreads
Rebel Springs: ★★★★☆ Blog & Goodreads
Gathering Darkness: ★★★★★ Blog & Goodreads
Frozen Tides: ★★★★★ Blog & Goodreads
Crystal Storms: ★★★★☆ Blog & Goodreads
Immortal Reign: ★★★☆☆ Blog & Goodreads
I feel like this should be obvious, but there will be spoilers from previous books (not this one) and… so… don’t read if you don’t want things spoiled.
So here I was… anxiously waiting for this book ever since that cliff hanger in Crystal Storm and just praying to the goddess Rhodes that she does not kill my Magnus and that he gets some what of a happy ending since he seriously had THE WORST childhood. I mean he grew up to be a fine, thirst-worthy, broody young man but my heart reaches out to him in his younger years.
Then here I am… upset that I kind of got what I asked for. I know, don’t mind me, just being a typical woman who says one thing but actually wants something completely different. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this was a super entertaining read and there are a lot of twist and turns and things you aren’t really expecting. But, I’m a real sucker for endings that actually break my heart. I mean, I felt the exact same way at the end of A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas. Things just fell into place way too easily for that huge cliff hanger that we were all hanging off of for a whole year and then some. I need my heart strings pulled.
One of my favorite parts is when Magnus and Cleo see each other for the first time in a long time. Magnus is just always grumpy and always jealous and snarky and it is just my favorite thing to read. You would think there would be running and embracing after everything that happened, but no he spits out a jealous remark and continually snarks for like two pages. He is absolutely every girl’s broody dream.
…And then all my other favorite scenes include Magnus and Cleo and no one else (like when they talk about Cleo’s hair again… eh? eh?). They are the real reason why I love this series. I mean, come on… they are ship-into-the-sunset-with-bullets-flying. I was here to hear their story and could have lived without the following rants (with some positives):
I have always been annoyed with Jonas, and this book just made that worse for me. Like why didn’t he die in book three? And the romance that he ends up in is just completely random and didn’t sit right with me. I felt like they were the leftovers of the characters and Rhodes just kind of shrugged and was like “yeah that could work” and fit it in. His character had so much room for growth from book one but I think he just got more and more angry and more and more annoying. I seriously was done with him after the love triangle first appeared.
Amara gets everything she deserves. That’s all I need to say on her topic. I was over here from the day her name came on the page.
King Gaius… why did I feel like I was supposed to be feeling remorse for him? Why did Magnus feel as if he owned his father literally anything? All Gaius has done is abuse literally everyone who comes around him. Literally. He is the bubonic plague. He never brought any color or happiness to anyone. He was always black and he was always poison. I will never be here for that kind of abuse. We have enough of that in the real world, I don’t need that in my fantasy world too.
Lucia was a hot head with anything she did, and having a baby just made it worse. She makes really rash decisions and never actually thinks over what she is doing. I don’t dislike her, but I also don’t realy like her. I know a lot of people absolutely hate her though, and I can understand why. I like her more than Jonas, at least. That doesn’t exclude the fact that she is low-key abusive. But what to do you expect from someone who was the favorite of an abusive father? I wasn’t here for it. I wasn’t here for how she went about getting her daughter back (surprise, she was kidnapped). I wasn’t here for how she treated the men around her. I wasn’t here for her “my way or the highway” that she pulls out in every book. I just wasn’t here for it. But again, Jonas is worse for me and I think it is just because he is above annoying to me.
Ashur to me is like the strong back-bone of all the characters we have. He thinks things through, he is rash, he is usually gentle and he cares about the people around him. You don’t have a lot of people who aren’t rash-thinkers in this book and so he was a refreshing face.
Nic… I just can’t. How the book ended for him I would have done differently… mine would have been in the exact opposite way that Rhodes took it (though he is her character and it is her book and this is how her story is told!). I also just have felt bad for Nic ever since we met him. He really doesn’t catch a break, so maybe the ending he got was genuinely for that reason. On the plus side, I am really happy that we got some representation out of Nic and Ashur. I do wish we had more page-time with these two (don’t take away my Magnus and Cleo time, just take away everything else).
Ending on a Happy Note
There is this scene, and it isn’t a spoiler it is just really completely amazing, there Cleo talks about how she is keeping her last name because she is honoring her family before her and she is the last in her line and I absolutely felt all the feminist in the world let out a cheer. It just brought a smile to my face to see that a woman in this fantasy-medieval land can stand up and decide for herself what she wants to be called and who she wants to stand for. Just because she is married, doesn’t mean she has to confirm. I mean, me personally, I plan on taking my husbands last name because I like the idea of becoming a family together. But I know plenty of women who have kept their last name or are planning to and I say more power to them and I love it. I felt empowered that she saw she had a choice and didn’t just assume she had to.
I’m not going to make this any longer, but overall I just needed some more devastation and twist for my taste. I like things to get super messy and this just felt really clean and neat to me. But it was a satisfying ending and I would still recommend this series to anyone who loves high fantasy, hate-to-love and just rash-headed people who you can’t help but cheer for. But I do take back my comparison to A Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones). I mean, GRRM gets my need for blood and heart-string pulling more than anyone I know.
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First, I want to state that I buddy read this IN A DAY with the lovely Melanie! Here is her Goodreads, Bookstagram, and her Blog! Reading this in a day with this girl was so fun! We have completely different schedules so we were all over the place, but we bounced feels and dreads off one another and it was so much fun! This girl is the sweetest and I can’t wait to read more books with her!
You can find her reviews and thoughts for this book here: GoodReads
Beware though.. she was super upset she didn’t like this ending!
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