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Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer. Rating: 3.5 stars.

Read from August 5th to 7th.

This is going to be a difficult book to review. I said in my review of the previous book that a lot of the charm and fun of this world has waned. I think it was bound to happen given we're so far into the series. But...after the way the last 25 pages went...I kind of, almost, think it was on purpose. There's a small part of my brain (the kind that apparently listens to conspiracy theories) that thinks the reason we're being shown over and over and over again all of the banter, all of the silliness, all of the cosiness is to do what happened in the last 25 pages. I was going to rate the book 3 stars (which would have been a shocker for me), but then the last 25 pages hit and it yanked the book up to 3.5 stars. If done intentionally, brilliant. If done unintentionally, this works so fucking well. It really changes the direction of the next book and I'm here for it.

I agree with my previous review that said that as the plot thickens a lot of this silliness and charm feels misplaced because the situation is so serious. Like, girl, why are you fawning over the guy you had sex with an hour ago while you're in the middle of meeting to discuss HOW TO SAVE THE KINGDOM?? ...but if this was done on purpose? To lead to the end of this novel/the cliffhanger/me waiting for the final book to come out for a year? So well done. Which is why this review is hard! There is some character development for side characters that I didn't expect but did really enjoy. I want to see specifically where Kingsley goes from here. Marv? Well, okay, sure. Why not? Also, there's a subplot with Lyssa hiding in this one that I want to see really come to the light in the next one.