End of Days- Spoilers

At the end of the book, I had trouble articulating how I felt. I did not know how to put my feelings into words, so I read other reviews in hopes that their words would spark the words that I was looking for. Normally, I try not to let other people’s views affect my review. I do apologize though because there were certain points of other people’s reviews that did influence this review. I’ll try to reference which reviews influenced me from what I can remember.  If you look on Goodreads for End of Days, Ferdy’s review and Anne’s review both influenced me in terms of trying to articulate what I wanted more from the book. Overall, I liked this book. I liked this more than the second book. Although I liked it overall, there were many things that did not sit right with me. I broke down the pros and cons of this book below. Spoilers below, so read at your own discretion.

Good parts

-This book had quite a lot of action, which kept the plot moving and engaging. The plot was unpredictable. 

-Like I’ve said in the previous books, I absolutely loved the chemistry and banter between the characters. I’m happy that Penryn and Raffe are endgame.  I fell for Raffe’s charisma. 

-They were also a powerful couple that kicked butt together. I loved how they could fight together in sync without needing to communicate a word. 

-I though the final battle was unique. Using lights and noise was clever of the humans to use against angels. It went against my expectations of a typical final battle.

Bad parts

-Certain parts of the writing that were repetitive. Penryn had to put a lot of thoughts into the “vault” many times. A line/scene that was copied from the first book was Raffe memorized her face. I’m willing to let the “memorizing” slide, but seeing the  “vault” line repeatedly annoyed me. There were also way too many times of Penryn thinking of how hot Raffe was.

-Okay, the physical intimacy didn’t strike gold in the book. Here were my thoughts of the two scenes:

• Scene #1 House on the Hill scene: What transpired in this scene was not okay.  As Anne put on Goodreads, there should not be a double standard for girls. Like ugh, this could have been a cute scene where they fall asleep together. They could have woken up to gentle peace and talked about hopeful things to each other. But no, Penryn basically sexually assaulted Raffe. Why did she do that?? Not going to lie though, the kiss afterwards was kinda hot. But this does not make the sexual assault okay. 

• Scene 2: the Pit scene: Oh okay, I’ll admit it was hot. But also totally out of the blue. I guess I was so taken by surprise that I found it odd.

-I’m not trying to say this couple can’t have physical intimacy. The physical scenes didn’t feel right. The first physical intimate scene between the couple was sexual assault. Like why?? There were so many things they could have done, and having her act on her horiness on a sleeping individual should not be one of them. Asides from the first scene being sexual assault, the physical intimacy also didn’t feel right because there wasn’t a gradual progression. There was no buildup. It went from all kisses in the first two books to suddenly having steamy scenes in this book. 

-Like others wrote on Goodreads, I felt the ending felt a bit rushed. Raffe bit the necklace,  summoned an army of the Consumed, and saved Penryn. Raffe talked to Penryn and admitted he wasn't planning on being Messenger.  She’s happy that he's staying and they kiss. And then, boom, epilogue. The battle started cool, but how the battle ended left me feeling meh. Even the epilogue did nothing for me emotionally.

-What bothered me was that Raffe had this information on the Nephilim since Book 1, yet he never mentioned to Penryn that Nephilim never were monsters? Why was Raffe on hellbent not being with Penryn  if he saw Nephilim were just children? If he firsthand witnessed that angels being with humans was not an issue, it doesn’t make sense why he kept pushing Penryn away due to angel rules. 

-Also, it bothered me how Penryn even knew that believing Beliel would manipulate her, but still approached him. It was a disappointing moment and made me like her less as a female lead. Which brings me to another point which made me like her less. In the first book, I felt more touched by Penryn’s characterization because she was determined to find her sister. With this book, I wasn’t as moved by Penryn’s morals and actions. I found Penryn more reactionary than doing things for a purpose. Things happened to her and she reacted to them. The closest thing I got to being emotionally moved was the speech she said over the mic before the final battle started.

I wanted to like this book a lot more. However, it didn't take away from my appreciation of the characters and their journey. I'm grateful for Susan Ee for creating this series, and it will always have a special place in my heart.