I'm actually sad to have finished this trilogy. I absolutely love Phedre as a heroine. Despite the fact that I knew I could have given myself a longer break between the second book and this one, I really didn't want to. Not least of which because there are A LOT of characters and I've already had trouble keeping them all straight. I think it took me until this book to really get a good idea of who's who.
I'm not normally a fan of first-person narration but it's the dominant style these days so I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it. I actually really like the way it's used in these books. Phedre is a kick-ass heroine, but she doesn't seem to realize it. Yet at no point does she come off as sounding naive. For example, every time Katniss got all self-deprecating I was like, "Really? Where are you getting this from?" ("The Hunger Games" is one series that really should not have been told in first person).
Everything Phedre thinks and does is totally believable. I found myself thinking about her the same way she thought about herself until another character told her how remarkable she is. Then I had to step back and go, "Oh, yeah. That was pretty awesome." But because Carey's writing is so in-the-moment, I had to consciously step back from Phedre's mindset in order to see it.
I also love the way Phedre matures. By the time this book ends she's approximately 20 years older than she is at the start of the first book and she believably sounds like it. She looks back on things she did and thought as a child and thinks, "Was I really that bad?" and I had to go, "Oh, yeah! You were a total brat!" However, at no point did I wonder how she got from that obnoxious, self-absorbed child to the mature, responsible woman she is in the second and third books. After all, throughout the series, she has a number of adventures which force her to grow up real fast. And she does so.
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