I adored "Striking Distance", and while I think that was a better book altogether than this, I also really loved most of "Disarmed", and the climax, and really, I just can't not give this book five stars. In ways it's not as good as "Striking Distance", but just like that book, it was what I really wanted, and it gets five stars for that.

There’s still a lot of absolutely wonderful angst and all the characters struggling with their own journeys and relationships and their care for each other. I think four POVs is a bit much for both novels at times: it would have been better to focus on one pairing or even one character, but it does straddle that as well as "Striking Distance" by giving each character a good narrative. I'm not sure how folks coming from the graphic novels will appreciate these because while I can understand being disconcerted by the shift in character for the novels, I think the novels do a good overhaul of the cast, giving them solid personalities and good dynamics to mess with. The graphic novels are good but they're relatively sparing in too many areas. The character and relationship meat in the novels is much better.

Unfortunately, while a lot of stories don’t handle miscommunication very well, this book teeters along the fine line of getting it down well, but overuses it and kind of ruins the balance. "Striking Distance" did a better job because there seemed to be slightly less of it, just more in the second half of the book that worked out. Book 2 just launches straight from the beginning with it, and it’s kind of frustrating at times.

Another issue is that this probably could have used at least one other edit, possibly from someone who’s lived in the US. "Disarmed" seems more... shoddily written for some reason, or at least more often we get “big thing happens at the end of one chapter” but is basically nixed in the following chapter off-page, along with odd inconsistencies or things that feel that way. Nicholas is often the victim of this, to the astonishment of Seiji and other characters. Part of it his character: fencing is the most important thing to him, so insults and depression flow more easily off him, which confuses other characters. What unfortunately happens is he’ll walk off in rage, and then just be fine again when he’s needed for someone else’s story. Seiji notes at one point quite pithily that this is likely a sign of all the things Nicholas went through prior to this that he’s just “fine” externally.

One admittedly minor bugbear of mine was time. It’s a problem in "Striking Distance" as well, mostly in how exactly much time is passing. Is it weeks? Months? Days? Hours? It’s never really clear, but I know at one points a character (I think Nicholas) says weeks, so I think it's only been several weeks max since Nicholas starts at King's Row. Only around three days pass between the novels. I know friendships can be fast, especially high school and college ones, but it feels like a lot more time has passed (or should have), but it’s incredibly weird to keep learning actually it’s only been a a short while. Where this also manifests is the trip to France. I’ve only been to one sort of training camp that was also three days. I get that they’re often short. What’s odd is when a character is looking back at King’s Row in America and thinking “I’ll be back in four days” before getting on a plane TO FRANCE. This I think suffers from something a lot of Europeans don’t understand: it is a lot longer for Americans to travel from the US to Europe because Americans have to cross the Atlantic Ocean, not just the English Channel. In fact in the story, the characters take 2-3 planes one way. The travel itself can often eat up an entire day on its own (and I've done the East coast to Paris trip, it's not short), even if you live on the East coast or New York in particular (a lot of international flights start in New York). While there’s going to be weirdness in crossing back and forth between timezones, what this roughly means is either the character wasn’t accounting for travel time (which would be odd), or this camp would be… a little less than two days, and it’s meant to drastically help these characters in their skills? I mean maybe that’s normal for fencing training camps. It’s definitely an odd detail, though. Heck, Google says fencing camp is usually a week? That makes a lot more sense? Whereas a four-day camp would make more sense for someone who’s local.

And another inconsistency: in "Striking Distance", Seiji notes that other fencers were being racist to him for calling him a samurai (because he’s Japanese and uses swords). It’s clear it was annoying enough for him to remember it: although he was speaking to Eugene at the time, he still said it. In "Disarmed", Nicholas makes a comment about how Seiji's not dressed like a ninja would be. Although you could write this off as “Seiji hasn’t had the racism talk with Nicholas yet” (though he shouldn’t have to), it’s odd that the book chose to bring up this form of racism as an issue… and then seemingly waved it off later. Not for any particular narrative reason, but just out of bad writing/a lack of editing. It’s a minor example of how inconsistency is a bigger problem in this book. There are other minor things. Seiji in "Striking Distance" says he doesn’t and never will eat bacon, yet the one time we see him eating breakfast in volume 1 or 2 of the graphic novel, he has a slice of bacon on his plate, along with other food that isn’t a protein shake, like he normally eats in the book (I don't really mind that so much, it makes sense for his character and it's a cute detail, particularly in his relationship with Eugene and the other muscleheads, but it's an odd inconsistency). Aiden appears to attend every match in volumes 1-4 of the graphic novels, but the novels emphasize he almost never attends them (though this could just be character POV coloring their experience of him). I’m not exorbitantly mad about this, because his character’s been tightened up and is more consistent within the novels, but it’s just… more uncomfortably obvious in "Disarmed". It wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't commentate in some of the graphic novels rather than just being a passive bystander or I don't know, ducking out to make out with someone.

Overall, though, the story is sweet, heart-wrenching, funny, and overall wonderful. I love Aiden, Harvard, Seiji, Nicholas, Eugene, and Seiji's dad. Wonderful book. Far better than the graphic novels. Glad I finally picked these up. ( )

I need the next book immediately. I love these characters so freaking much.
Though this cover LIED. There was so much more angst than I was prepared for given that fluffy art of my boys. I constantly wanted to yell at them for their lack of proper communication. On the plus side this book had so many amazing moments. Seiji’s dad is just everything, so supportive. And Seiji himself is just so precious and deserves the world. I’m so glad that Bobby and Dante got a little more page time this book which was severely lacking in the last. I could honestly just gush over every detail. ( )