Bronzed Beasts (The Gilded Wolves, 3)

I loved it so much. I have so many spoilery thoughts but I keep to myself. While the first book focused on Severing trying to get what was owed, and the second books motivation was grief, this one is about survival.It's a lovely ending to a series that has so many characters but I do have a complaint about the cartoonist villain.I get that they weren't in their right mind, but good grief I'd be embarrassed.But the character work otherwise is wonderful.

When I read the first book, I was hooked. As the trilogy went on, there's so many events packed into the book, it felt like it came to the point that it was unbelievable (it's fantasy, but still...) and the more we find out about certain characters, the more the explanations of why each person acted as they did (Delphine's actions to Severin for example...it's just really unconvincing.. ignoring Severin as a child or telling him not to call her aunt after they already had a genuine parent-child bond seems unnecessary and unbelievable). There's also some major gaps in this books, such as: who is Delphine to Severin (if she's his aunt, then he should be a descendant to House Kore and if she's not an aunt by blood...how would that relationship have happened if they're in competing houses? and is he or not the next heir to House Vanth? ). There seem to be a lot in the book that are murky and the transitions aren't always easy to follow.This being the last book, I do wish Chokshi didn't stick with her villain since it just seemed far-fetched...as was the ending (SPOILER: 100 years is a long time and the idea is romantic, but it's a long time to have to mediate on one person and why would the universe need that final solution in the first place??? Human Hubris, my friends...)All of the above being stated, there was a lot of research and excellent story telling that went into the trilogy (think Da Vinci Code meet mythology, history, and some elements of Harry Potter), in addition to the author's personal opinions on colonialism and how to handle its aftermath (which was generally done skillfully, but it does start to get exhausting when chunk of it is very binary (good/bad, right/wrong) when there's lot of gray to consider. <Why not let the reader decide? https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/do-historical-objects-belong-their-country-origin>All stated, the ending did leave me disinterested/uninspired, but the first 2 books made up for it.

This series by Chokshi is rich and fulfilling. Her imagery makes it a page-turner, and the character-features make them so endearing, I find myself emotionally invested. The most appealing part, is how she uses real cultural facts from around the globe to weave to complex story. I could follow these characters for ten more books.

5/5 - worth it, would buy again

I finished this book because I didn’t want to leave the trilogy half done. Although the author has a gift for language, and her ability with description is incredible, I was largely uninterested. The story bored me, and that may not be entirely the book’s fault. Aside from a few specific and incredible books, I don’t enjoy YA literature like I used to. I’m simply not the intended audience, and the melodrama and high stakes do not appeal to me anymore.The characters are varying degrees of interesting. I found that I struggled to care about them the way I was meant to. Zofia is still my favorite, and it’s not even close. I hated Severin. The author did too much damage to his character in the previous book. The redemption arc doesn’t work because I hated him so thoroughly that I couldn’t empathize.If it weren’t for the quality of the writing, I would have skimmed this whole book. I stuck it out, but although there were a couple interesting ideas about belonging and identity, but the delivery was often overdone. I rolled my eyes more than once. Overall, just an ok read, and not a series I ever plan to revisit.

The second book was, I think, the most engaging of the series, followed by the first, then this one. By this volume we’re invested in the characters and we need to see how it ends. Sweet, but not as compelling as the other books.

Well, she managed to do it again. I am enthralled with this series! I wanted to skip ahead at every turn, but I'm glad I waited and let it unfold...The characters in this series are remarkably well written! Will probably remain some of my favorite friends for a very long time! I am sad to see it end. Maybe a book about their later acquisitions?! 🤔Thank you for the wonderful world you created! I was absolutely captivated!

I love RC's writing, and this book was wonderful! I didn't want to say goodbye to these characters. The emotional depth was greater in this novel, and the delicious way the characters tend to assume all the wrong things even with their experiences together was strong in this one. It gave all kinds of twists and a bit of reality to these young people. I loved the arc of different relationships and individuals. So good!

Melhor conclusão possível.

So I'm going to make this review short and sweet, or sour more like it, because this is the last book in a series and I hardly need 3000 words to describe my reading experience.To be quite honest, The Bronzed Beasts did not work out for me as a finale to a very beloved series.I had a tough time reading it, as a whole, and it basically gave me whiplash because one day I'd be bored as hell, and the next I'd be hooked and read 150 pages, then back to bored and disinterested and only reading 20 pages a day.My issues with the book are as follows:. The tedious and frankly boring writing style: I enjoyed Roshani's writing style in the other two books a lot more, because I was just getting to know these characters, so it made a lot of sense to include a little anecdote of their past lives or stories from when they were younger, because it added more history to the characters themselves.The Bronzed Beasts certainly did not need that because at this point, we already know and love these characters, so it felt very tedious having to read through two/three pages of that before going back to the present day storyline.. The historical aspects of the story: now, don't get me wrong, this one is completely on me, but it also felt as if she was stuffing more boring (to me) historical shit in this book than necessary.. The lack of found family scenes between our main characters: The thing I loved the most was the interactions between Severin, Laila, Hypnos, Enrique and Zofia. But in this instalment, the group was separated, and the interactions and cute scenes between them just weren't enough! Like I'd have preferred modifications to the other points up there if it had meant seeing more of these characters be together and interact with one another.. The stakes were high, but Enrique and Roshani were wasting too much time on the historical aspects of the book: sorry, but I had to include it another time.. Eva being absolutely and incredibly useless.. The ending! What was that ending?! Like am I the only one who didn't really get what was happening? Was anyone else as confuscious as I was, and still am?I believe that's enough of the negative stuff, so I'll mention the aspects that I adored about The Bronzed Beasts:. Severin, Hypnos, Laila, Enrique, Zofia: I shall miss them all so dearly, like I just can't.. The romance arc between Enrique and Zofia: even though I wish Enrique was still with Hypnos, them breaking up in the last book was so well done, and I adore Zofia so much that I was very much happy to see them getting together!!(THAT THROUPLE THOUGH!!!!!). Laila and Severin's developing romance: Was there nearly enough of it? Hell no, but I still loved how it all worked out anyway.. Laila's "I'm dying in 10 days and you bitches are still talking about historical shit?" storyline: I just enjoyed it because the stakes were high because of that, and I adored Laila so much, that it increased my love and affection towards her because sis was dying soon.. Ruslan's whole "I'm an evil genius and your asses will be handed to you" storyline, especially the reveal at the end about House Attis and what their "special powers and interests" are: just really well-done, but I'd have loved to see him die at the end tbh.. The epilogue, which is the only reason I gave this book 3.5 stars instead of the 3 it deserved: I cried, I got emotional, I smiled, I loved and I lost.That is how epilogues should be done, people!

This third and final book has been all I wished for...and so much more! I loved every sentence, every word, every letter. This book series definitely deserves its place in my absolute favourites. Love it! Love the characters! Read it!5+/5⭐

I knew this book would emotionally destroy me! I was not ready for this series to end, I wanted to savour this book and read it slowly, but the gang wouldn't let me. This book was everything I needed it to be for the final book and that ending was a perfect conclusion so much as I burst out crying.The beginning of the book was so strange seeing Laila, Zofia, Hypnos and Enrique have to switch roles in a big way after the events of The Silvered Serpents. I wanted to be like them and hate Séverin, but again he won me over too much. I related so much to how Enrique was feeling during this initial chapters and I loved seeing his character development, especially Zofia's.As soon as I opened the book I was instantly transported to Venice, like the other books in this series where I've been transported to France and Russia. I loved my trip away and with it being centred around Poveglia Island, I knew I would be instantly hooked as both of these destinations are high on my bucket list.This series has been my favourite series this year and I am certain this will be a new comfort read.My only negative was that the enemy just seemed like an after thought, but it still made for interesting plot twists. That being said, this what I do like about the series and that is the series can hold itself without an enemy present.Highly, highly recommend you check out The Gilded Wolves series, you will not regret it.

I enjoyed reading it. I am a fan of different POVs, fantasy, heists, found family and representation of LGTBQ and neurodiversity.May contain SPOILERS!!!Probably my favorite book of all times is Six Of Crows by Leigh Bardugo and by looking for similar books Gilded Wolves was recommended to me. Yes it has parallels, maybe even too many, which sometimes made me think if it secretly tried to be a copy of SoC and it had some elements of other books in it as well (Babel because of the tower of Babel, colonialism topics,…).It is fantasy but I think that this part of „forging“ what they call it wasn’t really well explained or „naturally“ it just didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I think the book could have done it without most of the „forging“.Also there were some gaps in it or maybe I am not smart enough but some things to me just didn’t add up or make sense, so the storyline was sometimes unclear and unnatural to me. I think that is what bothered me most. And I don’t think it’s just me because I didn’t have trouble like that reading other books…On the other hand I roughly knew what was going to happen at the end of the third book and that a certain person would be there. To me it was sooo predictable that again it did feel forced and unnatural to me. The first and second book are doing a better job at it with riddles and more historical information that I enjoyed learning.Nevertheless I enjoyed the story but especially two characters:My favorite characters were Zofia and Enrique.I won‘t spoil too much here but I was always looking forward to their POVs. I really wanted to know what will happen to them, so I read all three books. I was a little disappointed when in the last few pages of the last book everything was wrapped up super quickly. I wished I got see a bigger glimpse into their lives „after what happened“.Also it was kind of a bummer we didn’t get Hypnos‘ POV. I really enjoyed his character and for me he became part of the group so I feel like we were missing out here because he didn’t get his POV later in the book - I was honestly waiting for it all the time.