marie's Reviews > Reckless

“If she is Shadow, then I am Flame. This girl is the very thing I can’t seem to escape—can’t seem to go anywhere without the remnants of her following. Where I am, she is. Whether it’s in the flesh or in the fragments of my mind. And where there is a flame, there is always a shadow. She is my inevitable.”

❗fair warning: some small spoilers might be mentioned here, so please be aware.❗

✧𓈒⋆ 4 stars 𓈒⋆✧

look, i'm just a girl, okay? you can give me an obsessed, down bad, pathetic man and i'll eat it up. was this book good in terms of plot? no, it wasn't. was it good in terms of romance? omg of course! i started this book in a few days after finishing powerless and i had a fresh obsession with kai and pae, so please excuse me for being a fan girl and rating this book with clouded mind.

so, first things first, somehow this book felt slower than the first one even though the first one was way longer. honestly, during the first 30% of this book i was very bored as nothing actually happened. moreover, by the end of this book the plot didn't move even a bit [well, i feel like something was going on in kitt's parts, but kai and paedyn were just exploring their connection]. this book is not plot-driven, but i wouldn't say it's a characters driven book too. it's a romance driven book because the only thing that happened here was that kai and paedyn tried to explore their dynamic, tried to fight their feelings for each other, tried to hate each other even though there's no hate between them, there's no dislike even after everything that happened. and it was clear from the very beginning that they love each other deeply, they are fools for each other, and they won't be able to move on. and you know what? i was actually really invested in that and that aspect only made me read this book in basically one day.

i also loved how some things were added to the world building, how the world expanded, even though i have so many concerns about the geographic part. also, i wanted to see more of kitt, of his own storyline and how it went behind the scenes. we only got little glimpses of what was happening with him, but those were just teasers, i can't say that these were proper character focused chapters. the same goes for the resistance members — they had such an interesting subplot, but it lasted for two chapters only. i would say that basically i wanted to see more outside the main storyline — kai and paedyn — the whole book focused solemnly on their feelings for each other, and even though i ate it up, i feel like this book really lacked other storylines.

that being said, i really don't know how lauren plans to wrap everything up in fearless, i really don't. she has so many storylines, so many characters to explore, so i really can't see the last book being less than 700 pages with everything going on.

“Because the beast doesn’t get the beauty.”

i usually include so many quotes in my reviews, but i won't do it here because they all are spoilery. just know that kai azer is still the most well-spoken man out there, i have tabbed every single chapter, highlighted so many quotes that it's embarrassing actually. so yeah, speaking of kai!

✧𓈒⋆ kai azer 𓈒⋆✧

i love this man and i'm really down bad for him. the things he says? even the things he thinks! i really can't deal with how poetic his love is, how he's calling her his undoing, he's sole purpose, he's proof of paradise? please if only real man were that well-spoken!

i really enjoyed kai's story here even though it felt kind of repetitive by the end. he was stuggling, but i feel like his struggle was focused on trying to hate paedyn, it wasn't his duty vs his heart. it was to hate paedyn or to accept his longing feelings for her. and i really wanted to see him breaking his duties, i wanted to see him fight for himself, and for his own happiness, not for kitt's, not for the whole kingdom's, but for his own. maybe lauren wanted to focus on his feelings for paedyn here and we'll see his internal battle between duty and love in the next book?

other than that, i really enjoyed seeing kai powerless, i loved how he himself said that here he's not an enforcer, his not a prince — he's an ordinary, he's just kai.

✧𓈒⋆ paedyn gray 𓈒⋆✧

i really loved her even more than in the first book. here she was not playing a hero, she was trying to survive and escape, she was trying to accept herself and everything that she's done. and i absolutely loved how real and raw paedyn was here, how vulnerable, but at the same time strong she was. it feels so emotionally real when the character struggles to accept their doing, struggles to accept taking lives or harming people and i absolutely loved lauren's decision to do it with paedyn. this girl had her whole life turned upside down and her finally reaching her breaking point felt like a long time coming.

paedyn's own story was focused on her accepting herself and unlike kai she had this internal struggle focused on herself mostly, not on her feelings for him even though she also tried to fight them, she also tried to hate him for what he did.

✧𓈒⋆ paedyn & kai 𓈒⋆✧

i won't say much here, because they are the main focus of this book and whatever i say may be spoilery, but their chemistry here felt even more intense than in the first book! the tension was literally one of the best i've ever read, and the way they were both fighting it, they were both fighting each other? please, i can read fourteen more books with chemistry like that and never get tired!

their scenes on the field of poppies? i literally highlighted the shit of those chapters! the whole setting was beautiful, vulnerable, but very intense. the chemistry between kai and pae was radiating through pages and i felt like an intruder trying to sneak in , trying to see their love for each other, their highest and lowest moments together.

“I’m tired of writing from the villain’s perspective.”

✧𓈒⋆ kitt azer 𓈒⋆✧

it's not a spoiler as i wouldn't call kitt a villain here too. he has his own game that we don't know of for now and his storyline is the most intriguing for me, because i really want to understand him, i really want to see how his story might go. would he turn out to be a villain, is it his villain origin story? is he saving paedyn and therefore kai with what he did in the end? does he have any ulterior motive or is he just simply acts in accordance to rumours about him?

i really thought this book will focus more on kitt as he got his pov in the epilogue of last book, but lauren decided to leave kitt for the last book. or at least i hope so, as his story seems to be one of the most intriguing in this series.

“For the reckless souls who dare to love and be loved”

as you guessed, i loved this book. i feel like i loved the first one more because of the plot there, but this book was not bad at all. was it amazing? i wouldn't say so too. i think it was a decent second book, it establised some important storylines and teased the potential storylines for the next one. it gave me chills with kai and paedyn, and i think i might be biased, but still. i really enjoyed it, i read it in two days, so i think it's speaking for itself with that.

and what was that ending? i might say i kind of guessed it and i wasn't that surprised, but then thinking how that might affect everything and everyone? thinking that we don't know the reason behind this decision? i literally had no words because of that complicated everything!

now, the most important question: how to survive until april? i need fearless like right now!