The Demon's Surrender (The Demon's Lexicon Trilogy #3) - Sarah Rees Brennan

Summary

Goodreads:  The Goblin Market has always been the centre of Sin's world. She's a dancer and a performer, secure in her place. But now the Market is at war with the magicians, and Sin's place is in danger. Keeping secrets from the market she loves, struggling with a friend who has become a rival, Sin is thrown together with the Ryves brothers, Nick and Alan - whom she's always despised. But Alan has been marked by a magician, to be tortured as the magician pleases, and as Sin watches Alan struggle to protect the demon brother he loves, she begins to see both brothers in a new light. But how far will brother go to save brother - and what will it cost them all?


Thoughts

Soo...eh.  This was weird.  It's from Sin's point of view, which I both liked and disliked - I really like her character, but I felt like because she was the narrator there were a bunch of plot tangents that weren't really necessary, but because they weren't really explored, they were also not fleshed out enough to work either.  Particularly the competition between Mae and Sin - and that's a whole other issue.  If you aren't worried about spoilers, look up the goodreads reviews and they really hit on the issue of race and culture, etc.  Also, speaking of POC - why is Alan on the cover?  It's from Sin's POV!  Why isn't she on the cover??  Oh wait.  Because she's half black.  Clearly not worthy of a cover.  (Admittedly there is ONE version of the cover with her on it.  But the other FIVE covers?  All Alan.)

I also felt like the romance was lackluster.  Once again I just didn't care.  And in some cases I was like...what??  *spoilers* Jamie and Seb?  Huh?  Where did that come from?  He was dating Jamie's sister for Pete's sake!  Not that I'm not happy for them I guess?  But we don't get to see their relationship mature at all, it's just suddenly THERE.*end spoiler*  In fact only one couple didn't seem out of the blue and that's because they've been sort dancing around the subject for at least a book.  In a way it felt like the couples were just...I don't know paired of so...neatly.  Which I feel isn't a real complaint, so I don't know what my problem is.  I don't know.  I mean I enjoyed the book, it's not that I hated it, but I wasn't really loving it either.

What did she do to my poor Jamie?!  He was unrecognizable!!  I actually would have loved a book from his POV and I feel like there was more action around him than whatever tangents we went down with Sin/Mae.  That being said, I did like the ending, and how the magical problems were solved (at least as far as Sin/Mae go).  Some people had some...issues with it, and I definitely see where they are coming from (Again, head to the goodreads reviews if you don't mind spoilers and want to see what all the race/culture hullaboo was about).  But in the end, I thought it was a good ending to the trilogy.