The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood And Ash) Paperback – April 20, 2021

I'm going to have a difficult time putting my thoughts into words for this review. First of all, I thought The Crown of Gilded Bones was the series ender. I'm not sure why I thought this, but because I was waiting for the ultimate conflict to wrap up, this felt like an extremely slow start with much to cover. The pacing of the book does pick up towards the second half, but I still felt like there was too much the characters needed to accomplish and discover in order to settle all of the pieces of the puzzle. Once I realized this is not the series ender, the pacing made more sense.Of course, my favorite piece of any book is usually the romance. In this case, Casteel and Poppy have a pretty solid relationship. They're together. They know how the other feels. And so there isn't much tension or conflict there. You guys know how this happens. We want our characters to be happy, but we also find them a bit boring when they are.Most of the story is about Poppy's self-discovery. She slowly gets pieces of her history through the story. And just about every time we settle on an additional piece that allows her to have some sort of title, we learn that there's an even bigger and more powerful title that should replace the one we've just learned. And Poppy is only just beginning to learn her power and what she's capable of. From the start of the series and being trapped as the Maiden, Poppy has dreamed of choosing her own path. And she finds time and time again that those around her want to cast her into a role, a piece of their puzzle, and they have preconceived ideas of how she should act and behave. If she deviates, those characters have at times tried controlling her. But Poppy won't be controlled. She won't allow others to make those decisions for her anymore. And as hard as it may be, she's not going to allow her raw emotions to make the decisions for her either. I was both frustrated and impressed with her through this cycle of behavior. Several times, Poppy has to pull herself back from using her powers in a destructive way. And I wanted to roll my eyes every time she found herself in this mental state, yet applaud her and Jennifer L Armentrout for choosing a different path. Yet, I also wondered why Poppy needed this "lesson" repeatedly.This series has been about some big twists. Unfortunately, my brain can't help but seek them out. I find myself anticipating a bit twist, reveal, betrayal, etc. And I question myself, "What could the author possibly do to surprise me? What assumptions have I, or the characters, made while progressing through the story that has little to no evidence to support the assumption?" And this has revealed more twists for me than I expected. The downside to this is that if I'm proven right, I'm actually a little disappointed. I want the author to truly surprise me. Or in the best-case scenarios, I want the author to allow me to be right on a few things and yet totally surprise me in other ways. Mostly, I was unsurprised with The Crown of Gilded Bones.I mentioned the pacing earlier. And the book did feel slow to me. I picked it up despite the length and despite knowing that I wouldn't post my review of it until months later (for All Things Halloween) because I expected to blow through it. I can't really explain why but I kept putting The Crown of Gilded Bones down. Partly this was because I found myself under a lot of stress in real life. We started our home renovation, Husband quit his job and found a new one, as well as having a 4 month-old baby. It was a stressful time. Sometimes I found myself escaping into the book, but sometimes, I felt like The Crown of Gilded Bones was adding more stress to me. And when a chapter break would come, instead of feeling excited and propelled forward....instead of feeling a desire to keep reading, I often felt a desire for a break from the story.Favorite quotes:-"There will always be people who need to be reminded of history."-"Unrest and unease are two very powerful destabilizers of any society. No matter how great one is, they can be taken apart piece by piece from the inside, often tweaking the foundation to the point of collapse before anyone realizes what is happening."-"The heart doesn't care how long you may have with someone. ... It just cares that you have the person for as long as you can."-"You are Casteel Hawkethrone Da'Neer. A son. A brother. A friend. A husband. ...You are a King. My king. And you will always be my everything, but never will you be a thing."And a little bit of A Song of Ice and Fireness coming out in this quote...-"Make sure she knows that I am the Chosen, the One who is Blessed, and I carry the blood of the King of Gods in me. I am the Liessa to the wolven, the second daughter, the true heir, owed the crowns of Altantia and Solis. I am the Queen of Flesh and Fire, and the gods' guards ride with me. Tell the Blood Queen to prepare for war."The last thing I'll say is that I felt a little political commentary in this book. It felt close enough to the story to be about the story, but I wondered if it were placed strategically to be a little bit about some of the current political issues we face. I find this irritating no matter what the political stance may be. Thankfully it wasn't a huge piece of the story.All in all, The Crown of Gilded Bones gets 4 Stars from me. It was slow to get started. Since I incorrectly assumed it was the series ender, the pacing never felt right to me. I often wanted to put the book down, which I find never to be a good thing. The romance is still between two characters that I really like, but because they were in a good place I didn't find that piece of the story to propel me forward. Even still, I do want to know what's going to happen next. How is this all going to wrap up? Have you read The Crown of Gilded Bones? What did you think? Let me know!

Before I jump into my (likely unpopular!) opinions of The Crown of Gilded Bones, let’s recap where things left off in A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire. Poppy and Casteel had A LOT to work through since he basically kidnapped her to use as ransom against the Queen of Solis in From Blood and Ash. Understandably, there’s a ton of conversations in which Casteel, Kieran, and everyone else has to convince Poppy that the Atlantians aren’t the enemy and that they really are (mostly) peaceful people, but it takes awhile for Poppy to come around. There is also lots of chatter about the impending marriage of Casteel and Poppy, which clearly she was not down for since Casteel whisked her away from Masadonia. However, as the novel progresses and more evidence of the horrors of Solis are exposed, Poppy’s hatred of Casteel starts to dwindle and she realizes that even though his approach to wooing her wasn’t ideal, she really does love him. Eventually the two marry (right before a straight up battle goes down in Spessa’s End… YIKES!), and she and Casteel travel the rest of the way to Atlantia to meet up with Casteel’s parents. Long story short, everything goes to heck in a handbasket, as Poppy is attacked and it is revealed that she is the true queen of Atlantia by bloodright. Then BOOM! We had to wait for the next book on that wild cliffhanger.As I mentioned in my reviews for the other two books in this series, I thoroughly enjoy the way Armentrout has crafted this universe. I won’t lie to you all: There are still times that it is so complex that my head spins a little and I forget things, but I think she and her editors knew this would happen, as there are often clarifications added into those points to jog the reader’s memory. However, in terms of plot, I felt like the storyline drug on for too long at some points and that not enough details were included in others. The plot still flowed nicely from point to point, but the inconsistent pacing was jarring sometimes as I was reading and messed with my ability to fully absorb what was happening at times.Since From Blood and Ash, Poppy has come a long way in terms of character development. This was particularly evident in the leap from From Blood and Ash to A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire, with less development occuring in The Crown of Gilded Bones. This totally makes sense in a way because Poppy has so much coping to do in the first two books that probably things that were happening around her didn’t shock her a ton in the third book except for some more traumatic experiences that went down (no spoilers, I swear!). I will say that I was pleased to see that she does become more comfortable in her own skin and isn’t afraid to speak up as much in TCOGB, and I was always so excited to see her put her foot down and basically command any room she was in. Through everything, I was so pleased to see that Poppy is still super kickbutt at fighting and being all stabby, and I hope this trait continues to be a part of who she is in the books to come because it is my absolute favorite thing about her. I can’t really talk about the ending because *spoilers*, but I will say that that was my absolute favorite Poppy moment to date and I hope the fire we see in her then will stick with her in the next book!Oh, Casteel. Okay, so like I said, this review is going to have some unpopular opinions in it, and this could be one of the big ones for those of you who are fictionally married to this guy. I’ll start with the positives here: He’s super smokin’, has some really dope combat skills (just like Poppy those his methods of murder are somewhat unconventional), he does everything he can to protect those he loves, and when he takes a notion to joke around, he’s super witty and funny. However, I really had an issue with Casteel in The Crown of Gilded Bones. It has been established that Casteel loves the people of Atlantia, but that didn’t really shown through since he was more concerned about Poppy 99% of the time. Yes, he should care about her, but sometimes I felt like it was at the expense of others which just doesn’t line up with how devoted he was said to be to his people. Additionally, he was selfless to the point of no return. I love a good character that is willing to do anything for those they love, but some of his actions just seemed unnecessarily heroic to me. I know some of you want to punch me and that’s fine (unless you actually try to… then please refrain!), but something about Casteel just wasn’t it for me in this book. I have faith that the next book may change my mind about him, but alas it is too soon to tell!A huge plus for me was getting to reacquaint myself with all of the amazing supporting characters in this series. Kieran has my freaking soul, and dare I say this… I like him so much more than I do Poppy and Casteel at this point. I’m not even sure why that is but I can’t help but smile every time his name popped up or he cracked some joke at the most inappropriate of times. Delano, Naill, Vonetta, and Emil just keep getting better and better, and it was so good to see more dialogue pop up with these guys in it in TCOGB. I’m super excited to see more of these guys in the next installment, and I hope they have even more opportunities to showcase their personalities then becuase I literally live for them!And here I go, beign the bearer of bad news. Unfortunately, there were some additional aspects of this book that just didn’t jive for me. The first is that the partnership aspect of the romance is starting to fizzle for me a bit. For some reason, it just felt like Poppy wasn’t as invested in being a support system for Casteel when he is firmly invested in providing emotional support to her. This one-sidedness really got on my nerves, and I really hope this gets turned around in the next book because I really want to love this couple. Speaking of romance… Each book in this series has been someone scandalous in one way or another, but I felt like TCOGB took this to an extreme that, for me, disrupted the plot in not great ways. I totally understand that one of the big things about Poppy’s character is the fact that she has been forced to not have physical connections to other people, but it just seemed like certain types of moments were overused in this book.As a whole, I really enjoyed The Crown of Gilded Bones. The worldbuilding was exceptional, the supporting characters were so much fun to get reacquainted with, and, per Jennifer’s style, the plot twists just kept on coming. While I can’t say this book didn’t have some (what I would consider) flaws, the overall reading experience was enjoyable, and I am eager to get my hands on the next installment, The War of Two Queens, in March of 2022. Thank goodness I have A Shadown in the Ember, a spin-off novel, releasing in just a few months to tide me over until next year!

I started re-reading this series in preparation for the next in the series to come out. So far this book is my favorite. Poppy finding herself. Discovering her love for Cas is real and absolute. The bond between her and Kieran beginning to fully form. The steamy scenes bringing everything together. I can’t wait to see how every comes together and ends. Jennifer is an amazing author. She makes the characters come to life in a way that engrains them to your soul.

I thought this was the last in the series! I liked it, it was good even with the million characters, i like it, the story is so appealling to me that i will buy the next book but man, it's so long. The book os half the time detailing how poppy is feeling and what she sees, i like it but it's a bit too much.I hate cliffhangers and this series has that, i don't like that at all.And that said, really? I don't like giving spoilers but really? Keeping away the spoiler part. Nothing happens until is a spoiler so ...I would recommend this series to whom has the patience to read a lot of feelings and not too much action, there are some hot scenes but i don't really care for them. I enjoy a good hot scene but if there is no story in the book, meh...It gets better, however in the last 10% or so... no, that's rude, i'd say about 30% of the book is good story, a lot of introspection from poppy, a couple of hot scenes and the rest...

Buena calidaden cuanto al físico del libro y la historia más que perfecta.

Me encantó!!! Mil gracias, venía en excelente estado a pesar de que viajó de EUA a Guadalajara y luego a Monterrey.El libro es perfecto, I’m calling iT EL LIBRO DEL AÑO; Jennifer hizo un excelente trabajo. Me encanta el desarrollo que tuvo Poppy

¿Existe algo más interesante que lo que escribe Jenn? No lo creo! Amo todos sus trabajos. El final de The Crown of Gilded Bones ufff!!! De otro mundo!!! Necesito el siguiente libro YA!

Uff que buen libro la autora no me falla jamás y que final no puedo esperar leer el siguiente libro