Hey, guys! I am super excited to talk about the second Book in the Wicked Saga, Torn because I absolutely loved it! I loved it even more than the first book, and I absolutely loved Wicked. But this is a fantasy series with swoon-worthy romance, kickass characters, fae and lots of mayhem set in a backdrop of New Orleans. This is definitely an adult series with explicit sexual scenes, so keep that in mind, but I definitely recommend you check it out if you can handle that type of content because it is so good. But let’s go ahead and jump right in!

Synopsis:

“Torn between duty and survival, nothing can be the same.

Everything Ivy Morgan thought she knew has been turned on its head. After being betrayed and then nearly killed by the Prince of the Fae, she’s left bruised and devastated—and with an earth-shattering secret that she must keep at all costs. And if the Order finds out her secret, they’ll kill her.

Then there’s Ren Owens, the sexy, tattooed Elite member of the Order who has been sharing Ivy’s bed and claiming her heart. Their chemistry is smoking hot, but Ivy knows that Ren has always valued his duty to the Order above all else—he could never touch her if he knew the truth. That is, if he let her live at all. Yet how can she live with herself if she lies to him?

But as the Fae Prince begins to close in, intent on permanently opening the gates to the Otherworld, Ivy is running out of options. If she doesn’t figure out who she can trust—and fast—it’s not only her heart that will be torn apart, but civilization itself.”

My Thoughts:

This book gave me all the freaking emotions. I skimmed through the first book since it has been so long since I’ve been in this series, and I am so glad I decided to continue because this gave me so many feels. I definitely saw some of the plot twists coming, but some actually took me by surprise because I was still reeling from some of the emotionally traumatizing bits. I really did enjoy this so much!

This book made me ugly cry. I haven’t ugly cried since I read The Book Thief, and while this definitely isn’t even close to that intensity, it was definitely high up there. It just made me laugh, made me smile, made me angry, scared, and literally–I just felt all of the freaking emotions!

This reminds me why I love Jennifer L. Armentrout’s books. She just has this really addicting writing style for one, which I adore. But the way she tells stories is just absolutely delicious, and I absolutely cannot get enough of it! I am not that person that says I love everything the woman writes (*cough* Half-Blood series *cough*). Believe me, I’m not saying everything she writes is magic. But the way she writes certain stories just really gives me life, and this series is definitely one of them.

One thing I do love is that she made the characters (okay, mostly Ivy) very relatable and real. Ivy is overweight, she has thick, unruly, red hair. She doesn’t look perfect like every other YA heroine ever, and I really appreciate that. I also love how she is described as being compared to Merida from the Disney movie Brave so many times, and I am living for it!

Speaking of, we just need to talk about ALL THE REFERENCES. Basically, just about every fandom ever is mentioned in this book at one point or another. There’s The Walking Dead, Supernatural, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and so many more, and I just love it so much. These are all coming from a character who we definitely get to know a lot better and that is Tink. He is obsessed with Amazon Prime and all things fandom-related, and he is definitely the comic relief of the whole series.

This series goes to some dark places, and we really get to explore those dark places a bit more in this book. The world is expanded upon and the overarching plotline is expanded upon, and we just really dive deep into the Fae in this book, which I absolutely loved because I always find one’s take on the Fae to be super fascinating. I definitely think Jennifer probably took some inspiration from Sarah J. Maas, but she also put her own twist on the fae and their appearance and culture, which was really interesting to read.

I also really love how there is this sort of link between the way the Order and the humans are versus the Fae and I personally think I could draw a more modern and contemporary link to it. I was actually talking about this the other day with my friend, so it is a very modern take on things, but in our society today there is this constant debate on racism between African Americans and White people. I think that this book does a great job of examing those links and how we can do better in our society today. That was just a thought I had while reading it.

But overall, I really enjoyed this book, I love this series and the writing, the romance, the badassery and all of the fae plotlines in this book. And I am so excited to read the final book in the series, Brave!

And there you have it! That was my review of Torn by Jennifer L. Armentrout. What is your favorite book about the fae? Comment down below! I would love to know. And that is going to be it for this review today. Thank you all so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you next time!