The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead | Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5)

"Those words, that voice, had more power over me than any phantom ever could."

My thoughts on the conclusion to a phenomenal series? I can’t even believe I am about to say this but The Ruby Circle is the first, and only, book in the Bloodlines series that I didn’t love. I liked it, this much is true, enough to reread it in the future, but it was still a rather weak installment and not at all up to the standards usually set by Richelle Mead.

I daresay it bordered on half-assed and rushed.

It was enjoyable–but only to an extent. By comparison to the other novels in the series, it was watered down and sped up to hit a more suspenseful note. But it didn’t mesh well with it at all. Mead attempted to wrap up plots from the novels in a way that could have been excellent, had the novel been a bit longer and less “everyone gets a happily ever after except a few!” and more detailed.

See, I’m all for happy endings and logically speaking a lot of things from this final book have been a long time coming and hinted at for ages. But it all felt a bit dull. “Boom, this thing happened!” and “Boom! They’re together now!” and “Boom, let’s make a deal!” is how the story felt to me. Unlike the previous installments, it felt rushed and as if we were told things rather than shown them.