Smog - ARC Review

We finally get a love interest for Deacon! I was so happy when I know this book was coming out! He is probably the most interesting of the 3 siblings and I couldn't wait for more on him. There was so many things that I wanted confirmation on about him and we got some of that confirmed. This book was a lot less edgier than I thought it would be. It felt like it was missing some of the depth that was got in the pervious four books in this series. With Deacon being probably the darkest of the all of them so far I expected a little more. Though depression and the other things that he went through were definitely tough. I didn't think we really got much into what his wolf can do. I was waiting for a moment where he "got it" like everything made sense and him and his wolf just meshed and became even more of a force to be reckoned with. I don't think that ever came to pass though. I almost felt left on a cliff hanger with the ending. Also, I know we all as readers hate the miscommunication trope but in this series, I felt it was used perfectly! These characters are flawed and were trying to cover together and work through differences and trauma to make their relationships work. We saw it with Cade & Thalia, Lena & Finn and in Ansel & Morrigan's stories but for some reason not here. It didn't seem like Henri and Deacon had much on the disagreement and learning stage front. Other than when Nathan was involved their conversations with each other went smoothly. It's weird to want the characters to argue but being that Deacon comes with baggage and so did Henri, the lack of arguments and or at least misunderstandings was...different. This book just felt overall softer than I imagined it would be.

  The spice was ok. I also think there was a little less here than the previous books. Not in number but in literal heat. Lena and Finn burned the pages up, even in their disagreements. I give this book a 2 for the spice. Overall I give this one a 3 out of 5. It was probably my least favorite from this series. I do hope we get more in the series because I really want to see Revecca and Magnus actually make things work and also Dinah and Ezra! Moving away from the main group would be interesting. I loved seeing a different group of people like we did with Ansel while still having them pop up to remind us of how much we love them! Not to mention the mystery of why everyone was switched and mixed up like how they were! Definitely recommend this series as it's a great shifter series!!