I adored All of Us Villains and I couldn’t wait to read All of Our Demise. You might understand how excited I was to get the eARC for this one. And of course I had to read it soon. I’m glad I did! So obviously I had to share my thoughts on this sequel. Let’s jump in!
There will be some spoilers from book 1, so proceed with caution if you haven’t read that one yet!
For the first time in this ancient, bloodstained story, the tournament is breaking. The boundaries between the city of Ilvernath and the arena have fallen. Reporters swarm the historic battlegrounds. A dead boy now lives again. And a new champion has entered the fray, one who seeks to break the curse for good... no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process.
As the curse teeters closer and closer to collapse, the surviving champions each face a choice: dismantle the tournament piece by piece, or fight to the death as this story was always intended.
Long-held alliances will be severed. Hearts will break. Lives will end. Because a tale as wicked as this one was never destined for happily ever after.
All of Our Demise (All of Us Villains, #2) by Amanda Foody, Christine Lynn Herman
Published by Tor Teen on 30/08/2022
Pages: 480
Goodreads
I flew through the story but realised I had forgotten some of the details from the first book. Luckily most of it came back to me while reading as important things were mentioned again. It’s always the question whether that happens when reading a sequel. I’m happy to say that was handles quite well in this one.
”In a different story, would we still have been enemies?”
Book one ended with a lot of excitement. Some of the champions are trying to break the tournament, Alistair is trying to keep his brother alive, and the people in Ilvernath can see what’s happening and are very involved in the gossip surrounding the champions.
In this second book we have two groups of champions. Some want to continue to try and break the tournament and end the cures. Others want to keep going as they’ve always done and win the tournament the old fashioned way. And surrounding this all there is an added mystery element when something starts happening in Ilvernath as well. This was a fun addition to the book and I liked guessing what was going on.
The Grieves had raised Gavin to die. The Lowes had raised Alistair to kill.
Both of them deserved a better story.
It was pretty clear the direction we were heading in with this book but I wasn’t completely sure how we were going to get there. And that journey did not disappoint! I loved reading along with the characters, rooting for them, loving with them and also grieving with them. We get the same POV’s as we did in the first book and I think that was a great choice.
I really loved three of the characters, Alistair and Isobel were already favorites from the first book but I also started to love Gavin this time around. Briony is the other character you get a POV from, but I never really cared for her. I do like that there are 4 POV’s and therefore probably different favorites for everyone!
“Killing is easy,” Alistair murmured. “It’s the afterward that’s harder.”
“But it’s the afterward we’re fighting for.”
Isobel had me question my love for her a bit, but in the end she won me back over. She was super interesting to read about, and I love seeing her struggle with difficult decisions. Alistair I want to give the biggest hug, he is amazing. His story already made me cry in book 1 and this time around I had to cry again.
The relationships were interesting and I didn’t mind them (actually LOVED one of them) but seeing everyone paired off didn’t completely feel realistic to me if I’m being honest. It was a little to neat for me. What I did love was the character development we got in this sequel. After getting to know the characters in the first book, we got to know them even better here and really see them grow. I was so proud of them!
He loved monster stories, after all, and he was undoubtedly the monster of this tale.
This series is pretty easy to read, the world building isn’t very expansive but still enjoyable and the plot isn’t that intricate. But the characters are just wonderful and truly what made me love the seers. I’ve said it about the first book, I was hoping for even more ruthless characters and wanted more true villains. While I still stand by that statement, I also adored these characters and I’m sad it’s over. I would love to reread the series at some point and I do hope these authors write another book together! If you haven’t read the book (or the series) yet, I would highly recommend picking it up!
LOVE that cover!