Synopsis:At twenty-two years old, Sydney has a great life: She's in college, working a steady job, in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Hunter, and rooming with her best friend, Tori. But everything changes when she discovers Hunter's cheating on her--and she is left trying to decide what to do next.
Sydney becomes captivated by Ridge, her mysterious neighbor. She can't take her eyes off him or stop listening to the passionate way he plays his guitar every evening out on his balcony. And there's something about Sydney that Ridge can't ignore, either. When their inevitable encounter happens, they soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one...
Review: This one can go in the trash with all the other "romance" books that glorify cheating.
Maybe Someday tries to tout two main messages: "love has no boundaries" and "even if you cannot control how you feel, you can control how you act." However, Sydney and Ridge's relationship is a TERRIBLE example of both of these things.
Ridge is a horrible person. Sydney wants others to recognize him as an honest man who works hard to maintain integrity in his relationships when he LITERALLY makes untactful jokes and doesn't seem to have respect for his other romantic relationship. Red flags everywhere.
Sydney's perspective (because yes, there's first person POV switching) is what I imagine Ariana Grande's internal dialogue must have been like when she got with Ethan Slater. "Yes, he's in a relationship, but the undeniable love between us and our shared passion for our craft overcomes all (even though we know better)!"
Not attached to any of these characters who seem more like caricatures than real people. I was not excited about Ridge and Sydney's love story and thought it was not a story worth telling.
Synopsis: In the aftermath of the Third Poppy War, shaman and warrior Rin is on the run: haunted by the atrocity she committed to end the war, addicted to opium, and hiding from the murderous commands of her vengeful god, the fiery Phoenix. Her only reason for living is to get revenge on the traitorous Empress who sold out Nikan to their enemies.
With no other options, Rin joins forces with the powerful Dragon Warlord, who has a plan to conquer Nikan, unseat the Empress, and create a new Republic. Rin throws herself into his war. After all, making war is all she knows how to do.
But the Empress is a more powerful foe than she appears, and the Dragon Warlord’s motivations are not as democratic as they seem. The more Rin learns, the more she fears her love for Nikan will drive her away from every ally and lead her to rely more and more on the Phoenix’s deadly power. Because there is nothing she won’t sacrifice for her country and her vengeance
Review: Slightly better than the first book, but not by much.
Major downside, this one is longer which means suffering longer through this story. If it takes me 300 pages to even get into the story, there's no way the book is getting 3+ stars.
My main gripes with this sequel continue to be with the character development and the plot.
Rin is still unlikable. Although her not having a clear motivation might actually be an intentional conflict in both books 1 and 2 and could justify poor big-picture decision making, her smaller-scale decision making sucks and is frustrating to read about. She's like when a movie's Rotten Tomato rating is a 6.0; not good but also not bad enough to love to hate.
I was happy to see some returning characters who I enjoyed reading about in book 1 (or at the very least enjoyed more than Rin).
I was really happy to see Nezha again, but I really don't understand who him and Kitay are as people. Nezha used to be the cool enemies to friends (or lovers??) guy vs Kitay was the annoying goodie two shoes, Hermione-esque friend. But this seems to get thrown out the window by the end of this book; Nezha is a Rin-simp until he's not, Kitay a rule follower until he's not. What do you mean that Nezha will do anything for Rin and also publically defies his father in strategic meetings when in the end he betrays Rin by literally stabbing her in the back? This isn't so much as a surprising, well planned betrayal as a complete 180 for the character that doesn't make sense at all.
Although I wasn't a huge fan of Kitay in the first book (rule followers are boring), I enjoyed him way more once Rin and Kitay had their anchor bond. Kitay's characterization also is all over the place which means he turned into a non-rule following, logical man. Now that they're literally bonded, this is as close as I'm guessing the reader will get to Rin ACTUALLY developing a close relationship with someone (whether it be platonic or romantic).
However, I have major gripes with their characterization. For example, Rin is supposed to have close relationships with some of the people, but the only reason why the reader knows is because of explicit verbal declarations of love rather than Kuang writing in scenes that build characters' emotional connection.
A lot of supporting characters are clearly just plot devices, and it shows. My theory is that Kuang wrote in too many characters in book 1 and realized she had to do some culling of her own once they served their purpose.
Rin is too OP with her genocidal-level fire power? Just slap a seal on her powers so she can't use it for most of the start of the book and force the reader to experience normal warfare scenes! The Cike characters are now irrelevant because Kuang decided to develop the Rin x Nezha x Kitay trio? No problem; just break up Cike and don't mention them until Rin needs them, then kill them all off! Really I don't see why Ramsa's death had to be a SUICIDAL distraction. And will all this talk about how hard it is cull the Cike, Suni and Baji were sure captured and executed easily. They should have at least gone out "guns" blazing.
Although I continue to not know much about the historical events that this series is based off of, it's way too clear that Kuang has some goal in mind that she's trying to reach and/or a historical framework that she's trying to mold the story into.
Rin (who's supposedly paralleling Mao Zedong) is unnecessarily unsympathetic toward the common man that she sees on the Dragon Warlord's campaign. Her declaration that the people are too stupid to govern themselves (even in the face of valid, logical counter arguments from people she trusts) felt forced just to fit her into the Mao Zedong mold.
If you enjoyed the first book then you should keep reading the second. I am not in that boat, and the first half was definitely 2 star material. The last 200 pages were actually somewhat entertaining despite the flaws, which might've actually put it into low 3 star territory if Kuang was better and tying this whole story together.
