Poyy Sricome Sricome itibaren Myrolyubne, Khmel'nyts'ka oblast, Ukrayna
Probably the weakest book of the Earthsea Cycle, but still worth the read both for completeness' sake, and for Le Guin's always excellent writing.
** spoiler alert ** Last Sacrifice was a good book, but not the best in the series and not an ideal conclusion. I liked the mystery. I had fun trying to figure out who killed the queen. Rose and Lissa's bond is something that I sometimes found annoying in the two previous books, but it worked really well in this one; it was necessary for Rose to know what was going on with Lissa's investigation to be able to put everything together at the end. One of my favorite things about this series is shipping Rose/Dimitri. I liked them being on the run and seeing them come to terms with everything that's happened between them. I sometimes wondered if Dimitri was pulling an Edward Cullen and staying away from Rose ~for her own good~ and was glad to see that there was more to what was going on with him than that. I didn't like how things with Rose and Adrian ended. Clearly, this wasn't a relationship that was going to last and I wanted Rose and Dimitri to end up together, but the way it happened was unfair to Adrian, which made it less satisfying. It bothered me that Rose cheated on Adrian and was unapologetic about it. Telling him after she's already cheated doesn't make it right. When they finally talked about it she was too defensive and unsympathetic. Rose may be snarky and tough, but she's never been mean or insensitive before. The whole thing felt out of character for her. It made no sense for her to treat him like crap then accuse him of playing victim. He was hurt and had the right to be, but he still helped her despite that and I think she should’ve tried to be understanding. I also hated that her choice to cheat was treated as though it is hers alone. Dimtri was right the first time around when he said that it would be dishonorable to steal Rose from Adrian. While I loved the idea of a twist on who the killer was, I was disappointed that it was Tasha. Sometimes in murder mysteries the killer is someone unexpected, but when looking back, all the clues pointing in their direction become clear. This wasn’t the case here. Tasha always seemed intelligent and levelheaded. There were no hints that she is the type of person who would kill for her cause, so it came out of nowhere. I hated that Tasha’s motive was partly jealousy. I never got the impression that she was petty. I hate it when female characters are written like that. There were so many well-rounded, strong female characters in these books and it was sad that Mead would resort to this type of characterization. Even though there are things I disliked about this book, I still found it an good read. Overall, I enjoyed reading this series a lot. It's one of the best I've read. I loved the ‘verse and the characters and I’m looking forward to starting Bloodlines.