The Beauty Of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles #3)
By Mary E. Pearson
Genre: YA Fantasy
Recommended Ages: 16+

Lia has survived Venda—but so has a great evil bent on the destruction of Morrighan. And only Lia can stop it.

With war on the horizon, Lia has no choice but to assume her role as First Daughter, as soldier—as leader. While she struggles to reach Morrighan and warn them, she finds herself at cross-purposes with Rafe and suspicious of Kaden, who has hunted her down.

The Gist:

In this final installment of the Remnant Chronicles, we see Lia become the ruler she was born to be. Old rivals become friends and traitors are revealed. This book was an enjoyable read, as were the others in the series, but I felt it lacked the big wow-factor I typically expect in the last book of a trilogy.

What I Liked:

I was so encouraged by the way Lia grew in this book. She really stepped up in a big way as a leader and learned to put the welfare of her people above herself. We went from a Lia who runs away from her problems in book one, to a Lia who faces them head on.

Rafe also saw a lot of character development as he wrestled with his duty and desire to be a good King and his love for Lia.

I was pleased to see that no time was wasted at this point on a love triangle between Lia, Rafe, and Kaden. I have been Team Rafe from the beginning so I appreciated being able to focus on him as the romantic interest.

What I Didn’t Like:

The first half (maybe even a little more) felt very uneventful. It was a lot of talking and traveling and figuring stuff out.  Too much internal processing, not enough doing. It made this imminent threat from Venda feel so far away I didn’t much care about it.

Some things felt rushed in the end. The final battle that had been built up forever was over quickly and certain arcs for characters amped up rather quickly, which usually meant I wasn’t excited about it. It felt forced, not natural at all. And without giving spoilers, there was something the kept being mentioned and now that I think about it, I’m not sure it was ever resolved, which is frustrating to me.

After all this time I still failed to see the relevance of having Pauline’s point of view. It only slowed down the pace for me.

I liked this bold new Lia. What I didn’t like was when her boldness and courage bordered on rudeness and mean. Sometimes it made it frustrating to read parts from her point of view, like Mary went too far trying to make Lia a bada** girl.

Lia’s gift wasn’t developed enough for my taste. I didn’t see enough examples of it being proven true for me to put any stock in it. I found myself disagreeing with her when she made decisions solely on this vague gift she has yet doesn’t understand and doesn’t know if it works. It seemed like a weak power to be honest.

LunasLuckyRating: 3/5 Lunas