I fell in love with Schaeffer’s brilliant incorporation of Nita’s thoughts in Not EBven ones and I’m so glad she carried it on in this one as well. She’s isolated and a girl who hates people, so it only makes sense that she would have thoughts on what’s happening but have no one to voice it to. These were sporadic and perfectly placed to push the plot and provide a seamless display of Nita’s dark sarcastic personality. It was a great way to give this disturbingly cruel world some much needed comedic relief.

I was just literally chortling with happiness over all the feelings this book gave me with these two main characters because THIS is the dark, enemies-to-more kind of slow-burn I crave. Is it something I would approve of IRL??? ahahahahahaha no but it's what I love in my fiction, okay?? Also, these two clash again and again, yet are still somehow magnetically drawn to each other in so many ways. But I also loved how, even though they're both the classic definition of monsters, they still try to keep each other to some level of morality? It was these kind of attributes and dialogue that really made me realize my love for this book AND just how freaking talented this author is. In Not Even Bones, Boulder assumes consuming Nita's body parts would grant him immortality, but this is never proven right nor wrong.

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There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How Nita gets rid of her final opponent: she pulverizes her mother with a way more powerful than expected hand-crafted bomb, one that nearly killed herself too. Given her combat experience and her regenerative abilities, Nita felt this was the only way to get rid of her.

To teach Nita who's in charge, Reyes tells her she can either turn her pain receptors on and let Kovit torture her for an hour, or let him cut off three of her fingers. In the corner, a tub of formaldehyde caused everything to reek of death. The smell kept sneaking out of the room and making its way into Nita’s clothes. She found it strangely comforting. That was probably a bad sign. But, if Nita was being honest with herself, most of her habits and life choices were bad signs. On a closing note, the diversity was beautiful and yooooooo, the MC was POC. I need to take a moment to clear the snot from my eyes.

Translated by Fans

Secondary characters become crowd favourites all the time and I must say the amount of times that Adair, a kelpie and acquaintance to Kovit joked about his murdering basement makes him a strong contender. He’s as hilarious as he is wise. He’s clever and interesting and honestly? Kind of threatening. He trades in knowledge and I can’t wait to see his role in the final book because he knows a lot about everyone. They look completely normal on the outside but have small and sharp teeth. To cover this up, most of them wear fake teeth. Nita runs away from the pier. She realizes that she needs money to escape, and also that she'll never be able to fulfill her dream of going to college, since Reyes uploaded the video of her.

False Reassurance: Henry tells Kovit he now prefers working with people with morals and compassion because they're easier to control.Now free, Nita frees Mirella, who is happy that Kovit isn't dead so that he will be killed by Reyes. They walk through the facilities. In Kovit's room, Mirella uses a t-shirt to wrap her hair and Nita takes his cell phone, but is unable to find money. Determined to leave, they open the door to the outside.

Nita had learned a long time ago—you don’t want to know anything about the person whose body you’re taking apart.' It's too simple to describe this book as just "dark". Lemme tell you a big problem I have with a lot of books and media that get slapped with that label. In the end, they either 1. don't actually let their protagonist get their hands dirty, 2. just has them do "badass" things to be ~ * COOL AND EDGY * ~, or 3. try to convince you the correct thing to do when all odds are against you is to hold on to your honor and never lose your "humanity". Because falling to the level of your tormentors would make you no better than them. Or something. They are then reunited in Only Ashes Remain by Agent Quispe under the false circumstance that Monica is her aunt rather than her mother. One sat in a glass box at the market of Monsters in "Not even Bones". It skittered away when someone poked on the glass.What the Hell, Hero?: Adair really lets Nita have it after the quadruple murder at the apartment building, lashing out at her for thinking that posting on the Internet about killing 3 people would really scare the planet into leaving her alone. His speech causes the sense of power the incident briefly gave Nita to vanish.