I did not like this book as much as the first two. For one, I was incredibly disappointed with the Kartik and Gemma relationship...if you could call it a relationship. Their relationship seemed to be very "go with the flow" and kissing was supposed to be enough, I guess, to convince the readers they loved each other. How could they when every time they talked one of them went running off into the woods! I swear, after the fifth time Kartik said he was leaving for good I rolled my eyes...why does he keep saying this? Then it's Gemma's turn to pretend to leave. Then they are back together the next day all smiles and full of kisses, without a moment's hesitation. This is the sum of their relationship. Like I said, disappointing.

The structure of the novel is so chaotic that I had difficulty finding what the author's motive was---or the characters! Gemma complains about being lonely, then is thankful for having friends, then she hates her friends, then she loves her friends the next day, then hates them again and hates Kartik, then loves Kartik and hates her family, then....everything was just too fickle! Gemma spends the entire book roaming around without any clear purpose. She seems to be a strong independent thinker, but she never really has the energy to physically carry out independent action. So many times I wanted her to stand up for herself, be it to her friend or the Centaurs and she never would.

The books seemed to to skip from events too abruptly. They were very rushed and I think about half of them could have just been left out all together. I loved the series, and the whole idea behind the story. I also love how the author describes situations and makes her readers think deeply about the confinement Victorian women suffered...and this book had so much potential (why I hate to give it less than 3 1/2 stars)! Sadly, it just seemed like a bunch of writing without any thought behind editing to make the story more accessible to its readers. ( )

I loved this book along with the first and second ones (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels) awesome trilogy! I loved the Victorian setting and gothic/fantasy aspect of these. I do have to say the last two were heavy reads but they were very, very good Libba Bray is a very good author and I can't wait to read Going Bovine by her also. ( )

Third book of the Gemma Doyle trilogy.

Historical fiction with a generous mix of fantasy and romance that features strong female characters who question the repressive rules placed on women in Victorian society.

As in the previous novels, not everything is what it seems. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin and Gemma struggles to figure out who is trying to help her and who will do her harm. Who can she trust? And can she even trust herself? Gemma is is a compelling character because she is not perfect. She makes some selfish choices, but in the end she finds strength and fairness within herself. Ann, Felicity, and Kartik also struggle to find a balance between their desires and what is right.

Fans of the first two books in the trilogy, will devour this one as well. ( )

Reviewed by Lynn Crow for TeensReadToo.com

The third and final book in Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle trilogy, THE SWEET FAR THING picks up a few months after REBEL ANGELS ended.

It's now spring, and Gemma has been unable to reenter the realms with or without her friends since the Christmas holidays, when she sealed all the magic inside herself. She has grown uneasy with dreams of the supposedly dead Circe and the absence of Kartrik, despite his pledge to support her. As Mrs. Nightwing oversees the rebuilding of Spence Academy's long destroyed East Wing, Gemma discovers a door that leads into the realms. Soon she, Felicity, and Ann have rejoined Pippa in the realms.

All is far from well, however. Within the realms, the various tribes strive to convince Gemma to share her magic, and she finds herself unable to trust any of them. Circe is not dead after all, and her warnings frighten Gemma. And what of the new visions, in which Gemma sees a former student of Spence Academy, who writes of the Tree of All Souls?

Outside the realms, there is just as much uncertainty. Gemma prepares for her debut and tries to make her peace with her father and brother. Felicity's headstrong behavior has put her on the verge of losing her inheritance and freedom. Ann must decide whether to risk everything on the chance of a career in the theatre.

As dark forces spread through the realms and the girls' debuts approach, Gemma must find more strength in herself than she ever thought possible, and decide just what kind of woman she wants to be -- for herself, not anyone else.

Fans of the trilogy will tear through this book, eager to reach its conclusion and learn the fates of all its characters. Bray's descriptions of Victorian life and the mysterious realms are as colorful as ever. Gemma makes a sympathetic if sometimes frustrating narrator, believable in her struggle to make the right decision. At over 800 pages, THE SWEET FAR THING is far longer than either of the books before it, and there is some repetition to the earlier scenes, but those who love the world will be happy to spend as much time there as they can. Toward the end, the plot picks up to a heart-pounding pace. Between cheering the happier parts of the ending, and grieving over its inevitable sadness, readers will be glad to have lived through this tale with Gemma and her friends. ( )

The Sweet Far Thing carries right after the events of Rebel Angels. Alliances have to be made. The magic has to be given equally to all tribes but Gemma hestitates. She loves the magic too much and likes helping her friends and loved ones by using it. Yet bad terrible things are happening in the realms and there's a strange eerie power that's growing in the dreaded Winterlands.

Be forewarned, this is a BIG book. It's slightly over 800 pages. So give yourself ample time to read it. This is a lot to read through and I'm afraid to say it, but it does seem to drag a bit. The girls go into the realms, then they're back to reality. This goes back and forth a lot and it gets tiring a bit. The reader can't help but get frustrated but, when you progress through the novel, the ending and the climax makes up for it tenfold. That being said though, there's a lot of action in this book. Fans of Victorian gothic and magic will love this. There's a good balance between the "real world" of Victorian England and the "other side" where magic, and fantasy come to life.

I still adore Gemma. She's not afraid of breaking any rules of propriety and does not care what the world thinks of her in their social circles. I like that about her. She wanted to run her life as she saw fit and didn't care what others thought of a woman running "loose and free" in society. She hasn't lost her wit (in fact it increases ten fold in this book) and her innermost thoughts still make you chuckle. What I didn't really like about her, is it seemed as if her friends just used her for her magic, and I thought Gemma was a lot stronger than that. Then again she's afraid of being lonely and is only doing what they ask for to please them and to let them stay with her. That being said, underneath that selfishness her friends end up staying fiercely loyal to her and they really do value her as a friend.

Aside from the constant travelling back and forth between the worlds, the last book of this series does a good job tying up loose ends and you're left with a satisfying yet bittersweet ending. Overall a good albeit long book. A great closing to a wonderful trilogy and a must read for fans of Victorian Gothic books. ( )

Love it! Love it! Love it!! ( )

It was a while between reading this and the earlier two volumes of the trilogy, so I admit I was confused for a lot of this book, mostly about the characters of the Realms. It would have helped if there were a list of who's who, like one finds in Cornelia Funke's "Inkheart" books. I suppose I was confused as Gemma was confused, trying to figure out what to do with the magic and who was trustworthy and who wasn't. I also wonder about her desire for independence and a new role for women, how realistic this was for it's time period, although I'm not a student of history and even so, I'm sure women felt this was during Victorian England even if it isn't in the history books. All of that being said, I got teary at the end and really enjoyed the books a lot when it was all over, particularly the denouement. I'll miss Gemma Doyle! ( )

In the "Q&A" with the author at the end of the book, she states that if she had a time machine she would go back to when she began to write the triolgy, and would both make it into a quartet, and outline it better.

This comes out pretty obviously in the reading of the final book. 820 pages is long. I actually ended up reading three other books in the middle of this one because I just could not concentrate on this book for that long.

Don't get me wrong, I loved it. It was intriguing and exciting. Gemma Doyle is an awesome character and I fell in love with her almost immediately when I first read A Great and Terrible Beauty. But this final book seemed rushed, and was not very well thought out. As mad as I get when other authors lead me to believe that they are writing a trilogy and decide at the last minute to extend it, it's a much better option than having a weak ending.

I only give it four stars, whereas it's prequels got 5 and 4 1/2 ( )

i’ve finally finished the eight hundred some pages of The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray. And I must say that in the last two days I have felt what I believe to be every possible emotion there is. I almost find myself at a loss for words in the shock that I still feel.We once again join in the adventures of the girls of Spence that we have grown to love. The story once is centered on the magic of the Realms and what Gemma must to with it now that she has bound it to herself. Although I rather enjoyed the underlying storyline of Gemma and Kartik, which is just one of many that concludes this tale.It seems that everyone and everything are against Gemma. She can’t seem to open the portal since Christmas and she no longer feels the magic within herself. She fears that the magic has not chosen her to continue in the Order. The mysterious East Wing is being rebuilt and a masked ball is to be held in its wake. And Gemma has still not seen Kartik, and his whereabouts are also a constant strain on her thoughts.When all else fails Gemma feels she will never return to the realms until a mysterious stone is found in the midst of the East Wing construction. Which turns out to be a secret door in which she has seen in her visions complements of a Miss Wilhelmina Wyatt, former Spence Lady and author of A History of Secret Societies.Once back in the Realms, Gemma cannot deny the changes that are happening around her, but yet she is still not ready to share the power. Gemma must carry around the responsibility of the magic, figure out whom she can trust, try to help her friends and also work toward her debut season! No wonder it took eight hundred pages!Bray does not disappoint in the final chapter of Gemma’s tale. The plot twists where plenty! Felicity was her brash self and Ann as insecure as ever, but in the end these girls surprised me for the better! The writing was detailed and painted vivid pictures even more so than the two previous books. I couldn’t put it down, and now that’s it over I fear I will miss these girls. ( )

Gemma has bound the magic to herself and can no longer enter the realms. When she, Ann and Felicity discover another entryway through the under-development East Wing, their joy in the realms resumes. But soon, Gemma is pressured to make the alliance she promised and the creatures of the realms will not be silenced until she does so.

I was really glad to finish this series (and it better be done now!) but this one daunted me a bit. It is way too long, clocking in around 800 pages, many of which feel unnecessary. Bray spends more time in this one discussing things that feel superfluous to the story. Much of what takes place in the real world seemed to drag on, as the action is almost all occurring in the realms. I was incredibly annoyed with Gemma in this one - she seemed much more ignorant than in the previous books. Her adamant refusal to acknowledge what Pip had become and to demonstrate this to Fee and Ann was incredibly frustrating. I was also rather disappointed with the way everything sorted itself out in the end. Fee and Pip never struck me as lesbians and it didn't seem to fit into the story very well. I thought the revelation of Eugenia as traitor was one twist too many - Circe has clearly been the villain all along; why are we changing that so far into the final book? And I absolutely abhored what happened to Kartik - most bizarre ending for a character I have seen in a long time. I am glad I finished out the series (like I said, there better not be anymore!) but I wish it had ended differently. ( )

Amazing books, all three of them! ( )

Gemma Doyle is the worst kind of unreliable narrator. It's not that she herself is untrustworthy, but that throughout this trilogy, she can't figure out who to trust. As a result, the reader never knows who to trust, or what the rules are for "realms" or for the magic that inhabits them. This is problematic if one agrees (which I do) with the general rule for fantasy writing that the rules for the world that the author has created must be clear and consistent. If neither the reader nor the narrator know the rules or who to trust, the story doesn't hang together very well. At least, it doesn't in this case. Some of the people we initially think are friends become enemies, and then some become friends again, and it is never through actual shifting loyalties, but because Gemma doesn't ask the right questions and rarely takes the time to think things through the reader is never quite sure who's on what side. So although she's the only clearly identified "good guy" in the story, I couldn't help but wish she acted more like the heroine she's supposed to be. ( )

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/j... ( )

I picked up A Great and Terrible Beauty not too long ago. I was kind of wary of the subject matter since I wasn't sure whether I would like or hate it. It seems like it goes either way with YA books nowadays for me. But I had read some of Ms. Bray's blog and found her incredibly witty so I decided 'sure, why not?'

I read it and I loved it. I rushed out to but Rebel Angels and loved that as well. Which brings me now to The Sweet Far Thing.

I didn't know how I would feel about. It had gotten a lot more negative reviews than it's predecessors on Amazon and as I was buying the book I was praying, 'please don't let this be a disappointing ending to a great trilogy!'

It was far from disappointing. In fact, it was the best in the series if you ask me. (And you might as well be asking me since you are currently reading this review.)

SPOILERS BELOW.

There a few very common complaints I've noticed amongst the (more articulate) negative reviews. I'm going to try to give my opinions on some of these things and maybe try to even convince a few nay-sayers otherwise.

--On Felicity's sexuality: Not many people have come outright and said 'EWW LESBIANS GROSS' for which I am thankful. A few people, though, seem to be of the opinion that Fee's coming out was completely random and unnecessary. I completely disagree. Random? No. I'd had my suspicions since the first book when the topic of the Saphists was broached. Unnecessary? I'm sorry, that seems completely ridiculous to me. That would be like saying anything that gives a character depth is unnecessary. That is like saying, 'Characterization? Pssh. Who needs that?' Fee's sexuality was a major motivation for her, as was her affection for Pippa. This was the reason she trusted Pippa so when she criticized Gemma's unwillingness to share her power. This is why she ran off to find Pippa during the battle against the creatures from the Winterlands. And it was one of her major motivations for her to break away from traditional society and live her own life. This was just one of the things that made Felicity a wild and independent spirit in a time when women were expected to be nothing more than pretty little accessories.

--On the 'unhappy' ending: This seems to be a sore spot for quite a few people. No, this ending was not happy sparkles and love and rainbows. And I'm glad for it. The pain that Gemma suffered made her world more real to me as a reader. Some have also said that the sadness was unnessecary. (Noticing a trend here?) Well sadness in life is also unnecessary, isn't it? But it still happens. So why should a book that strives to convey such strong moral messages offer an ending where no consequences are suffered? And on the note of the 'unhappy' ending, I didn't actually find it as sad as some people made it out to be. Yes, sad things happened but I thought that it ended on a rather hopeful note. Gemma, Fee, and Ann got the chances to live their own lives. The realms had changed for the better. Souls were able to cross over to the mystery that lay beyond, much like Gemma and Ann and Felicity themselves. I'm sorry, I just can't consider an ending that gives hope for the future so unhappy.

--On Gemma: Yes, she acted stupidly and selfishly in some places. I don't get when people complain about things like this, though. If she made every right decision at all times people would criticize her for being a Mary-Sue. So what if she acts stupidly at times? This gives her DEPTH. This makes her seem more like a real HUMAN BEING. Seriously, people are prone to making mistakes. Teenagers are often prone to making mistakes like Gemma's. Especially teenagers that happen to be the much sought after vessel of magic for a beautiful new world.

END SPOILERS.

So yes. I know there are probably a few things I didn't cover that I probably also hold strong opinions on, but these were the first things that come to mind. I'm always happy to speak with anyone who wants to agree/disagree with me.

If you're looking through reviews to see whether or not you should purchase this book/trilogy my advice is to do it. It's a wonderful series. ( )

I am choosing to offer up my thoughts on this book and the previous two books in the series A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels altogether here.

I've discovered that I loathe writing reviews on books that I don't feel strongly about one way or other - especially a series like this one in which so many other respected individuals have adored.

I will say that Libba Bray is an wonderful writer and I enjoyed her elegant and detailed style. There was never a time where I felt in want of details of the physical or emotional environment in which the characters found themselves.

In Sweet Far Thing I was drawn in by the feel of gothic-ness to the writing and storyline; full of danger, death, magic and love.

There is a deep and poignant message of strife that navigates through the entire series and blooms in each of the primary characters. The strife of the woman trying to be free in a society that found a woman trapped, unable to think and do much for themselves outside of a man's protection and guidance; the strife of finding oneself in a class, cast, and position that is seemingly unchangeable; the strife of feeling and thinking things and behaving in ways that are real expressions of who you are but that others find inappropriate and unacceptable.

The biggest strife was that of Gemma - possesing an ability she doesn't understand, responsible for the future of a world she knows nothing about, unable to trust anyone in a time when she needs an elder's wisdom and guidance. I think this was my biggest frustration with the Gemma Doyle experience - I wanted her to have a Dumbledore figure that helped and carried her through this time of change, confusion and expectancy. There were various individuals which fulfilled this role in varying degrees but it was always colored by the taint of partial distrust. I just can't imagine being Gemma, so confused by what is going on and having no one to turn to for guidance, not one to trust in.

As you can see, there were many qualities about this series and author that I enjoyed and respected but it was in bits and pieces and only after some analysis and deep thought - there were also many moments throughout that I found flat and repetitive and annoying.

Overall and in conclusion, it was not at all a waste of time, I do not at all regret starting or finishing this series. It is a series that is worth your time.
rating: 3 of 5 stars ( )

I've really enjoyed this series, and Bray does a good job of wrapping everything up in a way that seems true to the characters. However, this book was heavy... almost 800 pages, and I estimate at least 200 of them could have been edited out because the ground had been covered already. Other than that, good book! ( )

This book was an excellent conclusion to the triology. It tied up all the loose ends (although with some sad twists) and addresses some major issues teens face today. It brought the super natural with normal problems in as neat a package as possible. All in all I highly recomend this book and the series itself as a wonderful look into a magical world and for all we know may just exist. ( )

This concludes the trilogy that began with A Great and Terrible Beauty and continued with Rebel Angels. Seventeen-year-old Gemma Doyle continues to deal with her unique set of problems: strict teachers and snobby girls at Spence Academy are nothing compared to the disorder in the realms as the evil creatures of the Winterlands gain power. Gemma is caught between several impossible choices, not least the ones affecting her own and her friends' lives in the mortal world. Fans of the first two books will definitely love this one as well: every plot line brought forward in the first two books is resolved in this last installment. I liked the ending very much, though I wish the Kartik plotline had been resolved differently...it's an uplifting ending without being too saccharine/cookie-cutter. Though it weighs in at 800-plus pages, it was an extremely quick and interesting read.

The last of the trilogy, Bray has done an outstanding job of mixing her magic realms with that of London society through the eyes of a debutante. There was a lot to this book that I can't even go into. It was 800 pages long and I enjoyed every word of it. I only wish the book had not ended as it had and the author would give me a better piece of mind about the future of the character Gemma Doyle. ( )

Moderate Spoilers Follow For All Books in the Trilogy

I've been sick this weekend and these books were great light reading (especially since I read them on the Kindle - Amazon's e-reader - which meant I didn't have to struggle to hold the last book, which I think comes in at something like 800 pages!). They made me feel cozy & I thought in some ways they were actually fairly smart YA books. Bray does some fairly clever things with characterization and language at various points that reveal some hidden things about her characters' true natures rather than just flat out saying things in simplistic ways, like a lot of YA novels sometimes do. The series reminded me of a combination of The Chronicles of Narnia & Harry Potter, but with a much more female-centered cast and message. (More on that later).

The basic premise of the series is that 16-year-old Gemma Doyle, who has lived with her family in colonial India, relocates to England after her mother's death under mysterious circumstances and is promptly shipped off to attend boarding school where she encounters the usual crowd of boarding novel characters: Felicity, the rich alpha-female; Pippa, her best friend and loyal follower; a crowd of lesser snotty bitches who serve as Felicity's hench-women; Anne, the mousy orphaned scholarship student who's picked on and scorned by all the other girls; Brigid, the superstitious housekeeper; and a small cast of teachers, including a cold headmistress and standard 'one teacher who really understands me.' Eventually most of these characters are revealed to be more complicated and interesting than they first seem & Felicity, Pippa, and Anne end up becoming Gemma's dearest friends. The girls discover that the school has a number of generally terrible secrets & that Gemma has magical powers that allow them access to "the realms", a world of magical creatures that is both beautiful and horrible. Throughout the course of the story, about a million secrets - most of which are pretty easy to see coming - about the girls, the school, and two linked but eventually competing secret societies are revealed. The girls eventually find themselves in a battle to save both the realms and the human world.

As previously mentioned, the series reminded me a lot of the Chronicles of Narnia. The real world and the realms are distinct places & Gemma must use her special powers to cross between the two; there is a time disparity between the two, enabling the girls to spend hours in the realms while only disappearing momentarily from their world; the realms has its own history that marches on even when Gemma is absent, so the girls often return to find that things have changed dramatically while they were away. The magic & the boarding school setting echoed Harry Potter, but in a much more earthy & realistic way. Magic is powerful but also limited - each time Gemma enters the realms, she and her friends are infused with magic that they can take back with them to the real world, but the magic slowly dissipates in the real world. Spence, Gemma's school, is the standard Victorian finishing school - not a feminist Hogwarts - so the girls spend most of their time learning just enough to enable them to be proper ladies & good wives. There are no potions classes or anything.

I felt that this series was marked by a tension between "enlightened" and "unenlightened' views that made it very intriguing and often difficult to like all the characters at all times but was an honest reflection of the attitudes of its main characters' backgrounds and environment. I think this tension reflects the author's attempt to show a society in flux - new ideas of women's rights, socialism, capitalism, labor rights, anti-colonialism emerging in a society still very much dominated by past patterns of privilege.

Gemma, Felicity, and Pippa are all members of the privileged class (although each is "tainted" by a secret that threatens her privilege) in a privileged colonizing society, yet each is struggling with aspirations and desires that conflict with the narrowly circumscribed lives for which they are training. So while the girls eventually come to consider Anne (who shares none of their privilege, except the Englishness) one of their dearest friends, they can also treat her with a startling insensitivity that reveals the persistence of their class biases. They know they are being groomed for a path that will separate them from her; once outside school, a lady cannot be friends with a governess. They are patronizing and condescending to Brigid, even though they realize that Anne will one day serve just as Brigid does. Although each wants to transcend the strictures of a society that wants to marry them off young, they are scornful of their teachers who remain unmarried into their mid-20s. In many ways, Gemma, Felicity, and Pippa use the freedom of their privilege to rebel against the demands of their privilege, without understanding that it is only because they are rich & white that they can behave as they do. By contrast, Anne - who has a much smaller distance to fall before she finds herself disgraced and alone - has much less freedom to screw up or rebel.

Another area where this tension comes into play is the whole colonizer-colonized dynamic that is present between Gemma and an Indian boy-man named Kartik, who follows her from India & becomes her protector. Gemma treats Kartik imperiously and carelessly - she uses him as a confidant & tells him secrets that she fears would make her family hate her; she falls in and out of infatuation with him and then gets angry when he shows friendship towards a servant girl; she demands his full and immediate attention when she needs him for favors and dismisses him angrily when its time to play the part of an English society girl. At one point in the second book, he accuses her of being so casual and free with him because he's Indian & she responds "I don't even think of you as Indian," which is intended to be a compliment. To the author's credit, Gemma is quick to realize that this is not received as such & there is some quick self-examination. There is also a fair amount of exoticizing the "Oriental" male and his sexuality & I'm still not sure how to feel about how the author eventually dealt with that.... But perhaps I am over-analyzing the series.

The one thing that I really didn't like was how the proto-feminism at times became didactic, with characters lecturing other characters about choice & freedom. This really came to the fore-front in the third book, which was overly long at something like 800+ pages. I thought the author generally did a good job making her characters reflective of their upbringing while still showing how they chafed at it, but it broke down during these portions because I just didn't buy it. Fortunately, this was not an overwhelming thing throughout the series.

One strange synergy with [The Female Malady] by Elaine Showalter - which I finished last weekend - occurred to me while reading this book. Gemma's brother is a doctor working at Bethlem Hospital, aka Bedlam Asylum and through this plot device, she pays a number of visits to the place & attends a public ball there where the patients are made to perform to demonstrate how Victorian psychiatry has helped them.

Possible Ending Spoilers (But I try to be vague)

I'm not sure how to feel about where each of the main characters ended up - some character's fates seemed like a result of the author's recognition that she could not - given the social constraints of the time & place she had created - realistically allow certain characters to get what they wanted and what the reader might have hoped they would get. And although this kind of aggravated me in some cases - like I said, the reader doesn't necessarily get what she romantically hopes for with this series - I had a grudging respect for the author's refusal to cop out, abandon the rules of the world she'd created, and tie everything up in a neat little bow. Unlike certain YA authors who shall remain nameless. ( )

A satisfying end to the Gemma Doyle trilogy. Much more action takes place in the Realms and even more people in her regular world at Spence become entangled in the drama there. ( )

I really enjoyed the series although I found that the second book wasn't as strong as the rest. However, I must say, the ending didn't feel like closure to me. ( )

The conclusion of Gemma’s quest to understand herself and the Realms. As the border between the Realms and the real world weakens, the darker forces of the Realms begin to terrorize the girls of Spence. Gemma must find a way to control the magic she has bound to herself, and use it to defeat the Tree of All Souls, which possessed Eugenia Spence 35 years ago. All of this as she prepares for her debut, begins a physical romance with Kartik, and tries to keep her friends and family happy and safe. Non-explicit sex, discussion of lesbianism and prostitution, mild violence, several characters die. Ages 14+.

I enjoyed it more so than the first 3 but still did not think it was a great series. It has been awhile since I read the first two so there were a few things I was still fuzzy about. I couldn’t really remember how Gemma trapped Circe. Even though I wasn’t in love with the first two books I had to read this one because I wanted to find out if Felicity and Pippa would prove to be good friends or turn on Gemma. I also wanted to know if Gemma ended up with Kartik. Gemma’s brother was such a jerk and idiot I found his character really irritating. I suppose you could say that was good character development since I’m assuming that was how he was supposed to come off.

I read this one pretty fast as I had to get back to work today but there were a few things I did not understand or like about the characters. I think one of the main reasons I did not care for this series is I did not really like Gemma. She seems so self-centered and spoiled. She is always moping about how alone she is and she is tired of people using her and telling her what to do. Yet over the three books I don’t see her maturing at all and making any decisions that show she is growing up and deserves to choose her own fate. Even Felicity seemed to grow up more than Gemma in the end despite Gemma’s constant thoughts of how thoughtless Felicity is to the real world and other people’s feelings. I felt sorry for the way Ann was treated but this is one instance I agreed with Gemma. If Ann was not going to make any effort to try and change her lot in life then she might just deserve what she gets. Stop here if you do not want any spoilers.

It was nice to see that Mrs. Nightwing was on the good side. I was surprised in the end Ms. McCleethy was basically a good character and just misguided in trusting Eugenia Spence. I did not care for the way she was killed off though. At first when she tells Pippa to sacrifice her instead of Gemma she appears noble and self-sacrificing but then when she sees Pippa is going through with it and then she protests. So instead of looking self-sacrificing it looks more like she thought she was bluffing Pippa. Since she was going to die I would have rather her gone out as the brave heroine.

I was happy to see that even though she was not able to cross over Wendy wasn’t really “sacrificed” like Pippa claimed. I actually don’t understand what happened there. When Pippa sacrificed Mr. Darcy and Wendy did she just hand them over to the creatures of the Winterland and not actually kill them? It was a little confusing since for Ms. McCleethy and Gemma she was going to sacrifice them in her castle.

I was shocked to find out that Eugenia Spence was really the ultimate villainess in the book. That was one outcome I did not expect. Not to mention the fact that Circe helped Gemma and even seemed to sort of care for her. I was sad that Gemma did not end up Kartik. ( )

I had to give myself a day to recover from the ending of this book before I really knew how I felt. Initially I was saddened and angry by the ending but I see now that it was necessary and the closest thing to a "happy ending" that Bray could find. The book is long but doesn't feel long at all, it moves quickly and is fun to read. As it is the third installment and final act within the series, it brings about few new plot lines and characters but deeply grows upon the new ones. My favorite book in the series is still Rebel Angels and while I will continue to recommend this series to others, I felt that Bray went a little too far in conveniently pushing her fiction into true history in this book. We see that women all around the world in the late Victorian era are grasping for rights and trying to find their place in this world. I love how the novels fit into this era, like a fictional piece of a giant world puzzle, but here it was like she was weaving the storyline into the worlds events so much that it feel forced at times. I felt as if I'd gone from reading an exciting fantasy, to a history on women's rights.
The book is a fun ride, don't get me wrong. I just felt like the storylines seemed less thought out and more "oh, lets just have this happen next" when the girls were outside of the realms. It seems Bray knew exactly where she wanted to go within the realms but was a little lost in the "real world" (ironic, I know). I thought Ann's character development was weak when she went away, suddenly came back (with Gemma's help) and then made it on Broadway. Then Felicity turning out to be a lesbian and Gemma wanting to use the magic and not wanting to but doing it anyway...it seemed at some points that there was a lack of building toward an event and instead events just took place. I wonder if a great deal of this was due to editing as the last novel is so long and probably could have been longer.
Now about Katrik, hmm, I've been worrying over this aspect of the story for 24 hours now and I'm so frustrated. I know why Katrik had to become the new tree but I'm angry at the same time. Of course he and Gemma couldn't live "happily ever after," the book takes place in a time where Gemma could barely escape her "season" in the book, let alone marry an Indian. In some ways I feel like Libba Bray was being true to the time period in which she writes to give us an ending where Katrik could save Gemma and live on in some way but in others I feel like she's hypocritical to write a novel about women who stand up against the ways of their world and not allow Gemma to fully embrace this. Yes, she goes onto a university in the new world of America. Yes, she probably will love again. But how sad to think that they worked so hard and still have so far to come. I guess that's the point though. (sigh). Still, if I were to finish the book I would have some way for Katrik to live on in the realms, in his own form, so that at least he and Gemma could have some sort of true happiness together. Overall, I think its a brilliant series. ( )