Ashes to Ashes by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

New Year’s Eve ended with a bang and Mary, Kat and Lillia may not be prepared for what is to come.
After Rennie’s death, Kat and Lillia try to put the pieces together of what happened to her. They both blame themselves. If Lillia hadn’t left with Reeve… If Kat had only stayed with Rennie… Things could have been different. Now they will never be the same.
Only Mary knows the truth about that night. About what she is. She also knows the truth about Lillia and Reeve falling in love, about Reeve being happy when all he deserves is misery, just like the misery he caused her. Now their childish attempts at revenge are a thing of the past and Mary is out for blood. Will she leave anything in her wake or will all that remain be ashes? (Goodreads)

In my Fire with Fire review, I mentioned that I was going to open this book straight away – which never actually happened because I ended up suffering from a two day migraine since I couldn’t take any tablets against it! I opened this book as fast as I could though after being annoyed that the migraine decided to attack me at such a critical point within this series. After, finally, being able to read this book without the feeling that my head was going to explode, I found that I enjoyed the last instalment and the series as a whole.

I was a bit dubious about going into this book because of the amount of questions that I had after reading the ending of Fire with Fire – in short, I was worried that they either weren’t going to be answered fully or that they were going to be answered in the most obvious way possible that it would ruin the entire thing. Safe to say that neither thing happened! Hurray! I was satisfied with the answers to the questions that I had and I am glad that it flowed effortlessly with the story as a whole.

I felt like I lost my connection with Mary, however, which I wasn’t entirely happy about. I understand that she changed after she figured out what was wrong and everything and the feeling of loosing that connection reflects the feelings that Kat and Lillia had when they had no idea where she was – I still didn’t like it. I began to dislike her, even though she was a lost soul, so to speak. I missed the Mary that we first met and I was willing her to go back to that. Having said that, changing Mary mixed the story up a little bit which keeps the reader on their toes. I found myself rooting for Reeve, Kat and Lillia which changed the dynamics of the book and the characters.

While I mostly enjoyed the plot and the turn of events, I was a bit disappointed with the ending – or better said, the epilogue. It was short and sharp with the basic details of what happened, but I wanted more somehow. I don’t understand why the authors decided to change the dynamics of the book again in concern to Reeve and Lillia. There was no build up to some of the stuff that was mentioned in the epilogue, so the reader (me) was left thinking “huh? Where did that come from and why?”. It is a shame that a book that I enjoyed so much had such a weak ending.

I mostly enjoyed this series with a few things here and there. I was already a fan of Jenny Han’s and I will most likely go and have a look to see if Siobhan Vivian has written anything else that is intriguing. I gave this book 4/5 stars.