yeah i know, its not out yet, advance reader copy ftw. thoughts and spoilers below, wouldn't advise reading further until you read the book yourself unless spoilers don't bother you.

Spoilers Below
i was fairly dissapointed with this book. at first i thought maybe it was making some progress as it has rachel coming to better terms with Al and the other demons through a good part of the book....only to have that reversed in the last chapter. there was very little interaction between ivy and rachel and what little interaction we did get was depressing crap about ivy deciding to leave rachel. thats left fairly unresolved as well since they essentially reset rachels powers at the end of the book making her for all intents and purposes a normal witch again which somewhat negates ivy's reasons for wanting to leave...she'll obviously feel the need to protect rachel again now. that brings me to the biggest issue i have with the book is all the build up and finally calling rachel a demon and then everything is resolved by a nifty bracelet that nulls all her non-witch powers and hides her presence from the demons. its like a bad anime plot where they reset the main characters powers to zip because the writer got carried away and made them too strong.

so basically i wasn't impressed. there was some fun stuff in this book with rachel interacting with the demons and getting on better terms with al only to have that progress shot to hell in the last chapter by making the demons think shes dead and nullifying her demonlike magical abilities with a magic charm. ivy was also like a infrequently used extra in this book and her character has faded so far into the background that she might as well not be there.

 

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I disagree almost entirely. I liked the book and I don't think the bracelets are going to be permanent, in fact they are implemental in progressing her character. I expect the next book to be about Rachel being forced to choose to be 'who she is'. She may have accepted being a demon in this book but she didn't choose it, once things come to a head in some way she will be forced to make the choice herself, thus culminating that character arc.

When I first read it I thought the bracelets were horribly convenient and contrived and I do still think that to some extent but I like what they are doing for the story.

Harrison didn't erase the progress from the book, she used it to build up to the next book and I believe everything will mete out in the end.

Also, Ivy letting Rachel go was figurative, not literal. She was never going to not try to protect Rachel, she was just giving up on her hope of someday being with her romantically. Rachel is still, as Ivy put it, a force of change with or without the bracelets. When I read the chapter where they talked I didn't get the impression Ivy was going to ride off in to the sunset content that Rachel was powerful enough to zap things on her own, I got the impression that Ivy was going to move on with her romantic life and was thanking Rachel for healing her to the point that she could do so.

 

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I really enjoyed the book.

That said, the cohesion of the story has been falling apart since book 7 and it didn't get any better in this one.

The last couple of chapters really destroyed much of the pleasure I got from reading the first 2/3rds of the book.

Ivy isn't important to anything in the books anymore, Jenks isn't really either. I hope the author changes that, but don't really expect her to do so.

The story is about Rachel, not the people around her.

Sad, as the people around her are all much more likable and interesting than she has become.