Title: Agatine

Author: VioletSun5

Genre: Fantasy

Quick Summary: Terres had a drinking game that really applies here, too. And if you try to attempt said drinking game, you're gonna fuckin die.

Thoughts:

Agatine, like a lot of sequels, does some things better than its predecessor. It also does some things worse than its predecessor. 

In terms of plot, there's more to engage in. A lot of Terres was "Wren doesn't want to marry, Armand wants to be a real boy, Rannok wants to be friends again and none of them are happy." Contrariwise, Agatine had more meat on its bones. There was a plot that wasn't so fully absorbed on the cast's problems - at least in the sense that their personal issues weren't the entire plot. There was an antagonist that affected everyone, worse than Aegan by like. A long shot. And there was also Phina.

That said, Wren more unbearable - at least for the first... mmm, fifteen chapters. Wren's whininess was unbridled, to the point I was extremely annoyed with her and almost had to put the book down a few times to decompress. In Terres, it's reigned back and for good reason. In Agatine, while she still has good reasons, her response is disproportionate and I hate it. Not to mention she's supposed to be nineteen and she comes across as younger. But maybe that's just me. Meanwhile, while I still dislike him, Violet managed to make me hate Rannok less than I did coming into this book. So props for that. 

I also have a bit of a problem with Seltus. He's a bad dude, undoubtedly, but I know this because I've read some of Nightingale. Sure, he's bad, to Phina. And people find him scary. But... why does the town find him so scary, you know? Like, Wren has reason. Phina has reason. Armand kinda has reason but his reason is more intuition. Yet when Wren goes to kill Seltus, one of his croonies is basically like "yeah I hate him too go ahead". But... Why??? The entire city is full of shitheads. What makes him any worse than the people who, for example, beat the shit out of Rannok? It'd be good for Violet to either make his overall shittiness more apparent, or leave the focus solely to how he affects the main cast. Right now, how he affects the main cast overshadows how he affects everything else, leaving the "everything else" realms of his antagonism feeling lackluster.

In general, I liked Terres more in some regards, but a lot of that has to do with how edited it is in comparison. I think Agatine could overcome its predecessor with a round of edits.