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All of Our Demise (All of Us Villains #2)
by christine lynn herman, Amanda Foody
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The epic conclusion to Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman’s New York Times bestselling All of Us Villains duology that's The Hunger Games with magic.

“I feel like I should warn you: this is going to be absolutely brutal.”

For the first time in this ancient, bloodstained story, the tournament is breaking. The boundaries between the city of Ilvernath and the arena have fallen. Reporters swarm the historic battlegrounds. A dead boy now lives again. And a new champion has entered the fray, one who seeks to break the curse for good... no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process.

As the curse teeters closer and closer to collapse, the surviving champions each face a choice: dismantle the tournament piece by piece, or fight to the death as this story was always intended.

Long-held alliances will be severed. Hearts will break. Lives will end. Because a tale as wicked as this one was never destined for happily ever after.

*ARC PROVIDED BY TORTEEN*

“Killing is easy,” Alistair murmured. “It’s the afterward that’s harder.”
“But it’s the afterward we’re fighting for.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I needed this ARC more than my next breath. I thought about it from the moment I closed book one last year in July and it was in my thoughts no less than every single week (this is a long time to worry and obsess over someone’s fate you’ve come to care so deeply for). And, when I finally finally felt like it was close enough to the release date that I could request it, I waited on bated breath for a reply….and was both ecstatic and surprised and self-assured in equal measure when I was sent a copy for review. All this being said though…I still don’t know what to rate this story.

As it was, he felt as though he lived with some sort of comical in-between, with an Alistair who’d put his shiny new pitchfork in a place of honor by the fireplace, who mumbled about souls and goblins and whatever other nonsense when he thought no one was listening.
The broom cupboard, alas, had extremely thin walls.

Was it bad? No. Not at all. Did I hate it? Not in the slightest. Did I love it, though? No…the sad sad answer is that I did not. I did NOT love the finale to a book I wanted as much as one can want a physical thing. I have agonized over this review since I finished over a week ago, and it’s not because I don’t have the words to say what needs to be said, it’s that I don’t want to say what I feel needs to be said. And what needs to be said, exactly?

Well…if you know me AT. ALL. I am not one to sugarcoat how I feel about ship dumping. And I am not one to really, I don’t know, cherish being led a certain direction only to be thrown out in the cold. I don’t think this is wholly the authors’ faults nor intentions…but that doesn’t mean I do not feel the same cold and detached anger that I felt at a few of my biggest disappointments for series I would have died for, back in the day.

The writing, as always, is superb. I legitimately can’t believe how much I just LOVE immersing in this world, in this amazing writing. And I’ve struggled to pinpoint why I loved book one so much, but it’s become increasingly clear: when reading All of Us Villains it felt not only like I was immersed in a lush portrayal of a harsh, inevitable battle of ruthlessness and cunning, but as if I was watching a movie play out scene by scene, unable to disenchant myself by simply ceasing to read. This movie rolled on far past the credits, and while the story may not be for everyone, it should strike impressive to all that such a macabre story could be so damn enthralling, written in such an addicting way it’s as if I went into a movie theater and I’m left walking out, reeling-Unable to think of anything else for the longest amounts of time, with blowback and feels hitting me seemingly out nowhere when I least expect it. It’s beautiful. It’s raw. It’s absolutely spell-binding-I love Villains so much it hurts. And perhaps this truth strikes deeper simply for that exact fact of surprise of how much I loved enduring that pain and heartache.

And while I felt all of this when reading Demise, it was stunted. Not only by the fact that I was pondering and puzzling why the authors were choosing to take the path they did, but because book one-while not all out action, necessarily-had so much heart and fight and desperation in each and every scene, no matter how subtle. This one was more about research, alliances, what can we do to end this tournament vs fighting those who did not want the tournament’s end. And while I actually truly LOVE the premise of this masterfully laid groundwork, I felt like there was a sacrifice made…and that sacrifice was the STRONGEST pull of book one, in my opinion.

“In a different story, would we still have been enemies?”
“Does it matter?”

It’s not that (view spoiler)[Alistair’s happiness and deserved warmth (hide spoiler)] wasn’t the most important thing in the world to me, it was the wasted potential of the absolute epic WIN sat right at our feet at the end of book two, and the waste of the build-up (just in my opinion, of course) of that amazing betrayal all throughout book one. I just think….there was SUCH an awesome play on TRUE (view spoiler)[enemies to lovers (hide spoiler)] here and it was just kind of thrown to the side for the same exact play, but with a different song and dance and grasping onto the little clues from ONE SIDE thrown our way from book one. THAT BEING SAID-I was one hundred percent okay with how it all turned out, because if you truly love a character, you love and support their story. And I do. I did. End of. I just wish it had come about differently.

The Grieves had raised Gavin to die. The Lowes had raised Alistair to kill.
Both of them deserved a better story.

ALL THAT ASIDE….I do believe there was something missing here that was present in book one. I can’t quite say what it is other than I think I just-personally didn’t enjoy the plot as much. Because, in the end, I DID like the feeling, the swirling fall leaves on crisp, cold air. I felt every moment like I was apart of it. And that’s perhaps what I loved most about this duology-these authors know. How. To. Build. An. ATMOSPHERE. I just love their descriptions, always. SO freakin’ beautiful.

“I think maybe people need stories to survive, but they can also use them to hurt each other. Or themselves,” Gavin said. “If you’ve found a way for your family’s stories to feed you without feeding on you . . . that seems worth holding on to.”

Which, finally, I guess leads me to why I really didn’t just fall head over heels-I guess that, in the previous installment, I cared for almost every single character barring one. Well…I won’t go into that ‘one’ character, but aside from him/her, I didn’t mind anyone. In this story I just…only cared about Alistair, if I’m being honest. And, inevitably, *insert eyeroll here* the one character I didn’t HATE but didn’t LIKE from book one. So that left many. Many. MANY characters that I was morose about and bored to tears with their narratives. And-okay-let’s be frank. They angered me. It just was not the direction I wanted and I know I can’t control that, but it made me upset all the same. The twisted mind games (not what you think, I LOVE twisted mind games, believe me) that really just didn’t add much to the story and the way that-all of a FREAKING sudden-someone suddenly had so much animosity towards another certain someone seemingly out of nowhere. What even and when did that even happen? I don’t buy it, and-again-that sets my anger-dar off.

After everything he’d gone through, one thing remained unchanged: He’d always want what he’d never have.

I digress. My point in all this is-I feel that I should have grown to like these people MORE, not less, and it really threw me for a loop that I all of a sudden only wanted two POVS out of however many (and okay, yes, I did like two main POVs in the last book, but I didn’t HATE having to switch to the others, at all). Plus, I’m going to say it-this book was, in no way, brutal. *shrug* I guess I just really pictured all out THG style stuff, but I definitely felt it wasn’t as crazy as I’d have liked. Yes, I’m bloodthirsty. Yes I’m unhinged. And NO I am not sorry.

It was a story that could only end in death. Trying not to make that death his own shouldn’t feel shameful. Just necessary.

All that being said, I can see this shooting up in popularity for MANY people because of ~reasons~, but I can also see people being a lot like me, plot wise. I DO understand it and I also DO realize I’d be probably at a four star minimum if I hadn’t felt flummoxed at the turn of events, because I think this was a realistic way to end this duology, as far as a full book plot wise, but that doesn’t change that I wish it could have been different, more bloodthirsty, more lusty, and, frankly, more, even if that is simply only my personal taste, and I realize that. But-again-no one understands how much all this breaks my heart, so there is that.

*****

okay but why do I feel like I’m going to throw up :/

Never have I been more nervous to read a conclusion to a favorite series [or at least not in this gruesome way and not in a long time].

I would LITERALLY sell my soul to have this book in my hands right now.