I don't like YA anymore. I try to avoid it as much as possible, because I know most likely I won´t like it and I will complain about it. However, everyone was talking about this book, it was recommended everywhere and the fanart was beautiful. So I gave it a try.

I loved this, so this is gonna be a looong review, because I need to explain my love for this book.

I'm not even sure why it is labeled as “Young Adult” when there is violence, murder, witch burning and sex, all explicitly described. Maybe in these years that I've been avoiding the genre, it has become more adult, but I think it should be differentiated from the “New Adult” by omitting this type of descriptions and content.

I know it's not a 5 star read for everyone, I knew this was more focused on romance than fantasy before I started it, and for me, it succeeded in building an amazing, romantic story around the paranormal aspect of it. And (like usual) I'm aware of its flaws, I´m just gonna ignore them and tell you all the beautiful things:

The characters: I loved everyone, but Lou it's my favorite. She's a badass, she wants to survive and does everything in her power to do it, steal, lie, cheat and murder. I expected her to be a YA plain character, but no. She stands up for herself and won't let anybody take her down. And then there's Reid. I thought I was gonna be annoyed by his religious beliefs but he won me over with how caring and good a man he is. I was laughing and sighing at their interactions and dynamics, there were lots of fun moments with Reid being the rightest, purest man and Lou being vulgar, foul-mouthed, continually pushing her husband's ideals. Both of them have amazing development throughout the book and I fell in love with their love.

“I loved her. Despite everything. Despite the lies, the betrayal, the hurt. Despite the Archbishop and Morgane le Blanc. Despite my own brothers. I don't know if she returned that love, and I didn't care. If she was destined to burn in Hell, I would burn with her.”

The World: It's set in some french/medieval inspired world with an inquisition touch. So there's the church that wants to burn the witches and the pagan witches that want to… well burn the church. I liked that neither of them are all good or all bad, it's not white and black. In fact at some point both sides are the villains.

Plot Twists: I would like to say that I'm incredibly smart and predict them, but I didn´t, in fact I didn't even suspect a single one of them. so I was very surprised when they came.

And I will dedicate a paragraph of the weak parts of the book, because they exist, and my future self, who will read this, needs to hear it as well. Let's face it, it wasn't perfect:

The magical system contradicts itself sometimes, and I don´t understand why the Dames Blanches needed an equal sacrifice to use the magic but the dames rouches don´t. 2) Lou and Reid´s relationship is a bit insta-love, I would have loved to see more time passing by, not actually describe all that time, but mentioning some months or weeks would have made you feel their love, pain and willingness to sacrifice for each other, more real. 3) Although I love the humor, and Lou and Coco`s witty replays, in the end there's one scene when they could have left out the Libby song.

I could have read it in one sitting if it wasn't because of adult responsibilities. I enjoyed it so much I think I´ll put it on my “favorites” shelf. I can't wait to read the sequels, hopefully it will continue the same.

Fun note: I almost bought the trilogy twice. The latin version is completely different, the cover and titles are nowhere near the originals, so in my head they were different books.