my main review is located on book 1, but i will give slight updates for each follow up.
DO NOT START THIS SERIES ANYWHERE ELSE EXCEPT BOOK 1
this series has finally introduced it’s first problem, in my eyes, and it was absolute cringe, but soon went back to being the greatness i’ve enjoyed all this time. it gets unimmersively preachy for a chapter. the abruptness of the style & tone when suddenly trying to teach us that “looking down on lesbian/gay coupling is wrong” is so out of place, i immediately looked at the publishing date out of suspicion. and yep, late 2019, when there was a big surge in the movements for LGB & #MeToo. they are important movements, for sure; i’m not arguing that. I AM giving my first low score in the series for it, however, because of the ridiculously lame way the author tries to shoehorn it in. in fact, Neven didn’t even seem to really TRY to work it in naturally. he practically just took some argumentative points from a couple news headlines & just copy/pasted them in the middle of a chapter. any viewpoint can be inserted into a story, and that’s fine, but its success or failure is entirely dependant upon the author’s ability to seamlessly weave it into the dialogue & narrative. MAJOR FAIL, in this instance. ESPECIALLY when the entire series (before, during, AND after this moment) are filled with the most contradictory situations & actions you can imagine. incongruence level: 100.
thankfully, after this one instance, things go back to what we continue to expect and love from Boxxy & the gang