So sad this series has reached its conclusion - but SUPER hopeful that we'll get a future series with Jr.~!!!! Really looking forward to Bannerless! ( )

It took me a long time to get into this book because it starts off so slowly. Once it sped up it was great, although it only gets 3 stars because I felt the big finale was rushed. Throwing in a new-ish player/character in the final book just seemed off to me as well. Still enjoyable, just could have been better. ( )

I haven't been in love with this series in a long while and I'm not sure how that impacted my enjoyment of this book. It took me a while to even pick it up, but I did just so I could finish the series and hopefully get some resolution on the plot. I didn't connect with the book, the story, or the characters at all. The plot was interesting, yes, but wasn't invested in the story any more, and to be honest, I don't think I've been since Kitty came back from London.

In this last book, Vaughn does tie up everything and brings back scads of old friends to help out. I will give her props that they didn't have useless cameos or just all appeared out of nowhere (well, some of them did...) for the final battle. The characters coming out of the woodwork did have a bit of a checklist quality. In the back of my head, I was keeping track a bit, wondering if so-and-so would show back up, and yup, there they were in the next chapter.

I also realized that at the end of the day, I want intelligent characters who do intelligent things for intelligent reasons. I don't recall if Kitty ever started out that way in the early books, but in the last few books she definitely did not. Tenacious, yes. Charismatic, yes. Intelligent? ...questionable. She seemed to rely more on instinct and just throwing herself at a problem until the problem goes away than on thinking things through. I want my strong female characters to be smart, dammit.

I just didn't have fun reading this. This was a super short book; I should have been able to finish this in a day. Instead, it took almost a week. That, more than anything, is telling. ( )

The series finally draws to an end -- with a solid culminating adventure. Love the wish fulfillment, the wrap-up, the world set back to right, and Kitty getting some long-deserved regular life rest. ( )

Well, now. That was a *fine* payoff. ( )