Don't read the epilogue of this book; consider it finished at the end of chapter 24, and leave it at that.Now, if you want, you can even skip this review.They say that a series is only as good as its last book is. And that a book is as good as its ending is.Luckily for me, I don't entirely agree with those statements.Even if the ending of this book is nothing less of a train wreck.Having read the previous installments, I was prepared to hate every page of this, but I found myself grudgingly liking it.Even if I knew I was being manipulated, and I knew the author was milking every emotional moment for everything it was worth, and I knew I was being spoon-fed heaps of unwarranted drama.The plot kept me riveted. Even when I got headaches from too many eyerolls, I had to know what was going to happen next. And the course of events managed to wholly surprise me, more than once. If it was a matter of plot alone (minus the ending, of course), this book would have gotten five stars from me.Hats off to the author for all that.But.As always, I could have done without the quotes.Really. As in the other books of this series, I felt like the author was looking down at me saying "poor ignorant thing that you are, here's a quote to make you feel illiterate and to give a profound meaning to what I'm about to write, and of course you're not going to understand it".Maybe I'm the only one to feel like that, with these pedantic bits, the author is demeaning the reader.As always, I could have done without the songs.I hate it even when they sing in Disney movies. It's a personal thing, I guess: I just hate it when people sing instead of talk.As always, I could have done without the characters spewing poignant thoughts that appear written to the sole purpose of getting moving quotes out of the book.(I bet that the quotes-counter for this book, just here on GR, is already over a hundred)I could have done without all the boring correspondence.I could have done without all the angst.I could have done without the horrible, horrible way in which everything is twisted in that wretched epilogue.All in all, I couldn't give this three stars because I can't say I liked it. I enjoyed the plot, and the book had its moments. But that's all.EDIT just after writing this: I checked. After just a week from its publishing date, the counter reaches 213 quotes from this book.I guess I just won my bet :)