I am honoured to have received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Review might contain spoilers, read at your own discretion.
First off, thank you to the author for writing this book. I did not read the first book before I read this one, and it did not impair anything from my enjoying of this book. The author gives enough breadcrumbs that the reader can follow along even if like me they have not read the first book, which is the sign of excellent writing because I don't know about anybody else, but usually the second books that I read in series either have all the information dumped about what happened in the first book within the first few pages and you forget everything you were told after fifteen pages in or there is no information and you are left floundering trying to figure out what you missed. I was worried that Haven Enduring would be like that, but to my relief it was not. The information is spread out and feels like it is part of the second book. It felt so natural like it was new information even when it was in fact old that we should have known if we had read the first book (or maybe you did but it was a long time since you read it and wanted to dive into the world right away). It doesn't matter because this book will not make a fool of you except for maybe the ending, but we will get to that later.
I loved Danny, Kiera, and Cyrus as they felt the most natural characters to me who grew throughout the book. I love how Kiera tried so hard to save Danny by doing everything she could to keep everybody else at arms length before realizing that that strategy was not quite working for her and she tried to change and let people in to help her. I loved how Danny was in the past and he was trying so hard not to change the future enough because he didn't want Kiera to not exist (like awww 😗) and the things that Danny does had me rooting for him because he has a good heart, but he might have been paving the wrong path with his good intentions and quest for the truth and knowledge (like Faust guys, which had me falling in love with the book because why Faust might creep me out it is an intriguing concept and this Devil was not one to be trifled with 👿). Poor Cyrus, he tries so hard yet falls a little short, but I do love how he is willing to do whatever it takes to protect the ones he cares about even if he might have to give them some tough love (sorry Kiera). Honestly, I fell in love with all of the characters but those three resonated with me the most when reading the book.
I loved the world building and watching the places that the characters take for granted in the present being built in the future. I would love to know how long a person can survive in the world because I know they are technically dead and do not age, but they can die again, so how does all of it work? The magic system is on point and I loved how Kiera started to learn about different branches of it and how she wanted to learn healing pneumos so she could try and bring Danny back from wherever they go when they die.
My only issue with the book was the people in the Southern Shield and their obsession with the word "be". It had to be in every single sentence they spoke, and at first it was cute, but you would think after a while they would learn to expand their vocabulary? I used to work as a cashier, so I met all kinds of people and even those who did not speak English very well used "be" as much as those people from the Southern Shield did like it was starting to go from "oh, this is cute trying to demonstrate that they don't have a firm grasp on whatever language Kiera and her kind are speaking" to "this is becoming insulting and starting to feel like the characters have no intelligence left even though I know they do". I bet if anybody looked it up "be" would most likely be about fifty percent of the book or at least that is how it felt because it was in there a lot like I was shocked the two times Raina managed to not use "be" in one of her sentences (I was so proud of her, until the very next sentence had be in it all the time 😞).
Other than that I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a YA book with magic, political intrigue, betrayal, weird family dynamics, found families, and the dreaded cliffhanger ending.
Ah yes, I forgot, we were going to touch base on the ending (duh, duh, duh). It is a cliffhanger ending with very interesting plot twists at the ending that has me wishing there was a third book already so I could find out what happens.
499 out of 5 stars.
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