GOODNESS WHERE TO BEGIN. Brigid Kemmerer seriously just never lets me down. She continuously delivers on all the tropes I love and is just *clenches fist* SO good at the angst and the tension and the romance and the twisty turny plots!!! This was a super enjoyable read + a great sequel!! 🤩🤩 Super enjoyable writing, plot and romance 💙💙🫶🫶 If you read the “Defy the night” and enjoyed it, the sequel guaranteed to blow your mind! It’s surpassed my entire expectations! This is MAGNIFICENT! Even better and five gazillion stars worthy reading!

So basically, at the end of this book everything is in a mess, including our hearts and we are just going to have to wait for book 3. The embers of revolution continue to simmer in Kandala. The country is still plagued by disease, and the only cure is a scarce moonflower elixir only the rich can afford.

About Kasey

i will say that, at this point, the characters still feel the same and i love how their complexity/depth really shine in this installment. the writing is also still as easy-going and bingeable, and the world-building feels consistent and familiar. its just that the plot feels like a spin-off of the events of the first book, rather than a continuation, if that makes sense (even though i do think the pirate adventure is fun).

Alright. I’m a bit bummed with this one, as I sadly didn’t enjoy it as much as Defy the Night, which I loved. I think part of this is due to the fact that some of the relational conflicts that arise between some of the characters felt really childish, pointless, and frustrating. Istg I was the edge of my goddamn seat throughout the last few chapters! Like… the twists and turns once again had my jaw on the FLOOR!!! Especially the ending. I‘m not okay and I won’t be okay, until I know how it’ll end!!! Brigid Kemmerer excels at giving us wonderfully flawed characters who it’s so easy to love and who can shred our hearts all in the same paragraph.Defy the Night was one of my favorite YA reads of 2022, so I was super excited to read Defend the Dawn this year, unfortunately though... this was just nowhere near how good Defy the Night was. Defy the Night has everything you want in a story: a complex, dangerous world where anyone could be your enemy, a tortured hero, and my personal favorite: plenty of kissing. This book is unputdownable.” ― Isabel Ibañez, author of WOVEN IN MOONLIGHT, a William C. Morris award finalist You also get more storyline from Harristan. I loved his storyline and how he progressed as a character. He has my heart already 🥰 As with its predecessor, it’s hard to say much about Defend the Dawn without giving away too much. There are some really good plot twists that expand the world Kemmerer has deftly created. It doesn’t take long before you are swept away by her overall storytelling. Instead I got completely unnecessary relationship drama in a journey book (aka the bane of my existence) where both the journey and the drama was dragged ouuuuuttt...