Oh, damn. The second book in this phenomenal series almost made me pull my hair out. It did give me a bad headache, though, that persisted until some things had been sorted out (as well as they could be with our bull-headed protagonists). Honestly, be prepared for some nail-biting, gut-wrenching moments, as well as the 'wtf' ones. As full of action as Evenfall, Afterimage will keep you on your toes. ( )

i read the director's cut of evenfall like a year ago but i gave up halfway through cause i was bored and i never really got attached to the characters. then this month i saw people talking about afterimage on tumblr saying it's very very angsty and i was intrigued. so i read like the last chapter of the original version of evenfall and let me tell you. i was hooked. i don't know maybe my tastes have changed or maybe i was just in the mood for something like this. but i found the writing style so much more engaging and i actually read it quite fast considering how long it is and i never once felt bored.
this book is really very angsty, although it wasn't nearly as bad as i feared, but it did make me cry around 5 times. and it wasn't even the torture scenes, it was mostly the last 20% which was just so painful.
i mean i'm glad in a way that something like this happened between sin and boyd because it was needed, they had to realise that their relationship wasn't healthy at the moment, so that if they do get together again, they'll know what to and what not to do, what their expectations are, how to communicate more efficiently, etc etc. but god was it painful. this book is just pain and suffering. it's very sad.
there wasn't much action to be honest, and there is a lot of introspection and all their feelings and thoughts are put on the page, but it's so atmospheric and it never once feels repetitive or redundant or anything other than engaging. it feels like every sentence has a reason to be there, and that's how it should be. it makes me want to quote the entire book.
there were particular scenes that i loved loved loved, such as every time kassian turned up, and then one after sin nearly killed both boyd and kass, and when emilio turned up, yeah a lot happens and the plot moves forward and there's a lot of character development and we meet new characters and yeah. it's really very good.
i now have 3 new sons, namely sin, kass, and emilio, though i'm still not really sure how i should feel about him and am looking forward to seeing more of him, and one new daughter, harriet, because her name is really similar to mine and she's rad. i love her.
i was mostly happy with what happened, of course i wasn't glad that they suffered as much as they did, especially sin, who always deserves better, but i knew why it was necessary and i'm confident it'll help them move forward somehow. i also knew emilio was gonna show up at one point, cause i had read some spoilers back when i gave up on evenfall, so i strongly suspected who it was when they started mentioning this mysterious person, but that really didn't change anything.
overall i was pretty satisfied with everything and now i can confidently say that this is one of my favourite books ever. i will definitely be rereading it in the future. let's hope the next books get even better. ( )

So finally , at the end, there was a mostly happy ending. Enough of one to satisfy me for now anyway. It was a tough read but I loved it.

( )

With this sequel as is the case with a lot of sequels, It wasn't as good as the 1st one. Sin and especially Boyd (The main characters) went on and on for pages and pages with inner dialogue that was exasperating to say the least.
I found that even though the actual editing was not up to snuff, the story was OK, with some scenes really tugging at my emotions, so the book was not a complete waste of time. ( )

Oh my Lord of the Rings...well, that's over. My blood pressure has settled some, but I'm sure it will just rise with Interludes. Oh Sin, Sin, Sin. Although I do love Boyd, Sin is the one I want to climb like a monkey and make babies with. On to [b:The Interludes|10506860|The Interludes (In The Company of Shadows, #2.5)|Sonny Nothing|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1305378342s/10506860.jpg|15412744]! ( )