Playing Through Every Choices Book, In Order (Part 77: The Royal Finale)

Hey! Today we finally say a farewell to Cordonia as we take on our biggest threat yet!

Next time, we board a cruise ship as we attempt to fulfill our nana's tasks to receive our glorious, 100 million dollar inheritance!

The Royal Finale

M/C: Michelle Valentine

Love Interest: Liam

Heir's Name: Lily

Favorite Characters: Lily, Lena?, Olivia, Amalas

Least Favorite Characters: Eirik, Sigrid, Bastien

Favorite Chapter: The Last One

Overall Rating: 5/10

Review:

The Via Imperii is stupid. There, I said it. Introducing some all-powerful secret society that has been involved in everything so far is incredibly contrived, and all of these characters, such as Eirik or Emmeline, being a part of it, is even more ridiculous. Is this really the best conflict they could come up with for a final book? How many times can they come up with "insane plot twists" before those twists become predictable?

Julia & Omar are barely characters outside the, like, one chapter you interact with them. Sigrid is mildly interesting, but her take down is far too quick for my taste. Barthelemy felt more of a threat than anyone in this book. It was kinda neat having M/C infiltrate the Circle, but not enough was done with it. What was the point of the benevolent/ambitious choices? They affected nothing.

And now we come to Lena. I have no clue how I feel about her. As a character, her backstory is interesting, and I do like her struggles with facing the possible reality that she's been lied to for ages. But as a plot twist, I can't help but feel like she is so, so forced. A secret sibling twist? In the final book?

Liam was sweet as a final LI, and his earnestness with Lena was lovely. Maxwell kinda had no plot in this book, so he was very forgettable. Hana's thing with her mom is interesting, but not given enough focus, and Lorelai's involvement with the Via is so minimal that the plot just doesn't land.

Drake, meanwhile, has to contend with the worst plot twist yet being his main storyline - that Bastien of all people is a traitor, and got Drake's father killed. Was there a wheel they spun to decide which random character would become a traitor in this book? What does Bastien being apart of the Via do for anyone's character arcs? And, worst of all, this plotline is immediately pigeonholed for like ten chapters, and even when we do get to talk to Bastien in his prison cell, all it does is confirm him as a terrible person, with no development for him or Drake. Just a bad plotline, in my opinion.

Olivia is barely relevant in this book, but when she does appear, she's fun. Amalas is fun to work with in this book too, and the heir (in my case Lily) is as cute as ever, and is a highlight. I find it annoying that Madeline is straight up not in this book at all, even if you were nice to her for the previous two books. I wanted to see her again, and she's like the only major character from the first three books to straight up not appear in this book at all.

The final chapter was cute, and was a decent send-off for this series. I would have ended this series a few books ago, but hey, despite all my complaining, this wasn't the worst final book to end off on. Oh, and a point off for genderlocking, as per usual.

At least I don't have to look at Cordonia again for a while, right? ...Rules of Engagement...Leo...no. no. NO!