Shadow Princess

724 pages.

Why God. WHY? Did Tory Vega really need 400 pages of being a whiny pathetic little bitch? Did Seth really need 120 pages to make me wish he was dead? (I've wanted him dead since book 1 anyways) Did we really need 200 pages of the same back-and-forth just to make me feel like I was reading book 1 all over again?

Guess we'll find out, tonight on Discovery Channel.

If I was the sort of person who drinks, I'd be on my fifth shot of sacrificial whiskey while writing this review. Anyway, let's tackle the obvious, what I hated.

- Tory Vega. I hate her. Always have, always will. Her constant pity parties, whining, selfishness, and: I want Darius. I hate Darius. I want Darius. I hate Darius. I will bounce on Caleb's dick as many times as I can even though that ADDS NOTHING to the plot and I have zero connection to him whatsoever. My sister needs TO LOVE ME, APPRECIATE ME. Darcy needs to attend to all my emotional needs while I don't pay attention to a single thing that is going on with her.

Someone should have left this bitch in the human world. The more I read these books, the more I want Darius to really ruin the fuck out of her life, she doesn't deserve the air she breathes and she would never be a good ruler.

- Seth why the fuck is this character even here? Seth, Caleb, and Max are the most useless, shallow and underdeveloped characters I have ever read about and they are just there for filler content. They're there to sound like a bunch of fucking chads and say: BABE, LITTLE VEGA, SWEETHEART in condescending tones, fuck everything that moves, and make me want to puke every time they make a decision that adds nothing to the plot and DOES NOT belong to their personality profile just for shock value.

I truly wish they would die. They are SO inconsequential to this entire thing, they're just there to cause plot-controlling inconveniences for their lazy writing.

- THE BOND The fact that Orion and Darius have that stupid little bond that makes them attracted to each other as straight men. I am not a gay man and I can't say if this is problematic or not, but JESUS CHRIST that annoys me to no end. They use the little "we want to cuddle because of the bond, we want to make out because of the bond" as a fucking joke. As a comedy device. Gay characters/attraction is not a comedy tool. The entire thing made me uncomfortable and annoyed. I also hate how their inner dialogues about it is usually: I hate that the bond makes me feel this way about him, I hate that it makes me want to suck his dick. Shut the fuck up. They didn't want to commit to a relationship between them other than brotherly love but this entire bond thing is useless and weird.

- The dumb southern girl and the token Mexican kid : I don't think I need to explain this one. This series just has too many stereotypes that didn't need to exist. They are already supernatural creatures, get creative with THOSE stereotypes.

- Length and Lack of Editing you'd think that five books deep, they would have hired an editor that would say: hey, maybe this doesn't need these 40 extra chapters. Maybe we should focus more on the girls having real classes and actually learning something for once. Maybe we should go deeper into the world-building and add SOME droplets of it for a change. Maybe we should give these characters more solid personalities and make sure they stick to it?

MAYBE JUST MAYBE, a well-written plot twist is worth 300 cliffhangers.

They started with this ridiculous shit again, just to make sure people pick up the next book. A sloppy, non-sense cliffhanger that came out of NOWHERE, with no actual build-up.

And please, don't even get me started on that Tory and Darius bullshit. You know what? He dodged a fucking bullet if you ask me. I wouldn't want to be tied to fucking Tory Vega for the rest of my life.

I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SAY THIS BUT DARIUS-DESERVES-BETTER.

Do you know who is the most CONSISTENT CHARACTER? THE VILLAIN OF THIS STORY. DARIUS' DAD KNOWS WHAT'S UP. He knows what he wants and he is going after it, and everything he does makes sense. Because it fits his personality profile. It fits his belief system. Even when he does something unexpected, IT FITS THE FUCKING BILL. Unlike every other character in here.

if you are a writer or trying to be one, here is a tip: you need to know your characters, you need to understand their purposes, wants and needs. fears and wishes. AND THEY NEED TO REMAIN consistent, along with their choices and actions. They will all be guided by those things. And SLOWLY, add things that can shake up their belief system and maybe cause a disruption in how they see the world.

I feel like these characters are being held hostage by these two authors who don't respect the characters they created THEMSELVES. They are pushing and pulling them, making them do things that make no sense so it fits their SLOPPY, LAZY plot and it is infuriating.

I promised I am finishing this series because it's personal now. I want to be able to pinpoint every mistake, every disgrace, I want to criticize it with the knowledge of a FUCKING SCHOLAR OK.

Now to the few good things, the only reason this book got 2 stars from me. Orion and Darcy. That's it. I want to remove every page they are on, and just make ZA their series. Their story. The only times I smiled, laughed or enjoyed myself was when they were present and I KNOW, I just KNOW they are going to fuck up the only good thing in this series in the next books.

Because I am slowly learning their MO. And the MO of this series is BUTCHERING characters for the sake of shock.

Anyways, 2 stars. One for Darcy being the only sister who is worth something and one for Orion finally being on time for his classes for the first time in four books.

My blood boils but we will move on. Everyone is telling me: there is so much character development on book five, the writing has matured so much. If y'all are lying to me, you are getting bitch slapped.

*raging violence, but it's all because the next book is even longer, don't worry I still love you*

I faced the board, curious as Orion wrote his quote of the day on the board.

YOU ALL PASSED THE RECKONING

I arched a brow, glancing at Tory. "That's almost a compliment." I breathed and she laughed, but our amusement died away as Orion added more to the board.

THE STARS MUST BE FUCKING WITH ME.

CALEB: Hey, sweetheart. Do you wanna hang out tonight? X

I watched as the red ticks illuminated to let me know she'd read the message. She was probably trying to think up the perfect thing to say back to me. Agonising over it, debating it with her friends and trying to figure out how best to respond to me.

TORY: No.

"He loved me. Lance Orion loved me. And I loved him back with every corner of my heart and all the spaces in between."

“Because my life was empty before I loved her. And parting us won’t change the way I feel for her.”

" Because you’re in my head all the time. You pulse through my blood with each beat of my heart. I live for every scrap of attention you offer me and suffer through every moment you spend ignoring me"

“𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩.”
“𝙒𝙝𝙮?”
“𝘽𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙧𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄’𝙢 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪.”

”The stars picked us for each other.”

wtf just happened????????
i don’t know whether to cry, yell, throw something out of the window… WHAT KIND OF ENDING WAS THAT????????
i’ll need at least two weeks of vacation to recover from this.
onto the fucking next💋

So if she wanted us to hate each other then I’d just have to play my part in it. Because I couldn’t keep away from her, that much was becoming abundantly clear. So I’d just have to keep being her villain.

Another day, another confusing as fuck prediction. One day I’d open up my Atlas and the horoscope would say: avoid the eggs today or you’ll get the shits and I’d know exactly where I stood for once.

“What if I asked you to be mine. Just mine?”

I faced the board, curious as Orion wrote his quote of the day on the board.
YOU ALL PASSED THE RECKONING.
I arched a brow, glancing at Tory. “That’s almost a compliment,” I breathed and she laughed, but our amusement died away as Orion added more to the board.
THE STARS MUST BE FUCKING WITH ME.

Because if there was one thing strong enough to make me swallow my pride, it was my love for my sister.

“It’s cute that you think you can just switch off your attitude problem,” Darius taunted. “But if you really can play nice then I can too.”
Of course he didn’t apologise to me for any of the shit he’d put me through because why the hell would he? He was an arrogant, entitled, selfish prick and expecting him to take ownership of any of his bullshit was like expecting the moon not to rise because it had offended the sun.

“You’re what I latch onto to bring me back from the shadows.”

She is so… everything. Does she know how everything she is?

Stupid fucking Darius with his stupid fucking face and his lying mouth and his massive fucking bed and his goddamn jacuzzi and every beautiful, perfectly crafted motorbike the world had ever seen with none of the appreciation for how they ran.

It’s like she holds my heart in her fist and squeezes it just for fun.

She wasn’t just my sister, she was my other half. And without her, an entire piece of me was absent, leaving a bloody wound behind.

Did he crave the kiss of the shadows too? Or was he really just offering to hold my hand if I fell?

He created little worlds that belonged just to us.

Because Darius Acrux was absolutely not a mistake I was going to make twice.
Certainly not while I was sober.
I definitely wasn’t going back there… like fifty four percent.
Dammit.

“Love,” I breathed simply. Because what else even really mattered in this world?

We’d been born to rule over this kingdom and the strength of our father and love of our mother ran through our veins.

I got the feeling I was about to find out what it was like to be slap bang in the middle of a love triangle. Minus the love part. I guessed that would be a lust triangle then. Which actually didn’t sound all bad aside from the fact that two sides of the triangle were unaware of each other’s participation in this particular interaction.

When my nights weren’t possessed by the shadows they were haunted by dreams of him.

His mouth found mine and he kissed me so hard I forgot whose air I was breathing

“Why are you wearing something that’s so hard to take off?” he demanded.
“Because I don’t actually plan on hooking up with assholes all the time, it’s just something that keeps happening to me,” I growled.

It felt like the sky was falling in and the earth was splitting apart and the only two things left in the world were the two of us.

please just give me forever to fix them

Because who didn’t want to find their one true love? Who didn’t wish for that kind of bond? My whole life, I’d never had someone choose to love me. No one had ever looked at me the way he was now and said that they picked me.

“Kiss me again with the stars overhead and let our story begin anew here.”