The long-awaited conclusion to Rina Kent’s Legacy of Gods series has arrived. God of War, Eli and Ava’s story, is unquestionably different from the rest of the series. It’s darker. It’s more intense. It’s messy. It’s controversial. Let’s get into it.
Ava is a wild child. She lives for parties and the color pink. She can be found at the club, drinking, doing drugs, and dancing. And antagonizing her step-cousin (I think? I could be wrong here the family tree in this series never ceases to throw me for a loop). Ava has been in love with Eli for as long as she can remember. Affections he doesn’t return, even though he can often be found watching from the shadows, chasing away her prospective lovers.
Her partying and her mental health are both spiraling out of control. Then she wakes up in a hospital, two years later, with amnesia and a husband she has no recollection of marrying. Eli. The psychopath she’s always loved and hated in equal measure.
In keeping with the theme of seriously mentally ill characters, Ava suffers from psychosis and panic attacks, a combination that ravages her mind. And Eli, like every other male main character in this universe, is supposedly a psychopath. It’s something that I really love about this series. These characters are far off from the land of the sane, making them interesting to read about, but neither are they an accurate portrayal of what mental health struggles actually look like. Which makes it a little easier to get through these dark stories.
God of War takes part way after the rest of the books, which all sort of overlap in the timeline. This story gets a timeline all of its own, which was a great decision. There are only so many perspectives I need to read of the same party.
The final installment in the series is an enemies-to-lovers, fake marriage roller coaster filled with secrets and suspense. Oh yeah, and another virgin heroine. That’s six for six in case anyone was counting. It’s my most significant complaint about this series.
The plot and tone are refreshingly different from the rest of the Legacy of Gods books. This book takes just a slightly different road on the journey of the twisted love story, and as much as I loved the first books, I really enjoy this change.
Not everyone loved this new direction. Longtime fans of Kent’s work who waited a long time for this book seemed to trash it en masse when it was released last week. I don’t get the hate, especially for people who are familiar with the genre and what to expect from a dark romance by this author.
God of War is page-turning, suspenseful, and deliciously dramatic. Look, is the writing perfect here? No. Is it good? Not particularly, if we’re being technical about it. But technical is overrated. This book is fun, fast to read, and over-the-top, a little like a soap opera. It’s flawed, but I love it.
Spice: 4.5
Writing: 3
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