Review--Rage and Ruin by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Dangerous secrets and forbidden desires lead to shocking consequences… Don’t miss book two of the fantastical Harbinger trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout.

“Jennifer L. Armentrout’s intoxicating new fantasy is her best yet!” — New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter on Storm and Fury

A half human, half angel and her bonded gargoyle protector must work with demons to stop the apocalypse while avoiding falling in love. The Harbinger is coming…but who or what is it? All of humankind may fall if Trinity and Zayne can’t win the race against time as dark forces gather.

As tensions rise, they must stay close together and patrol the DC streets at night, seeking signs of the Harbinger, an entity that is killing Wardens and demons with no seeming rhyme or reason. Forbidden to be with each other, Zayne and Trinity fight their feelings and turn to unusual sources for help—the demon Roth and his cohorts. But as deaths pile up and they uncover a sinister plot involving the local high school and endangering someone dear to Zayne, Trin realizes she is being led…herded…played for some unknown end. As anger builds and feelings spiral out of control, it becomes clear that rage may be the ruin of them all.

Well, I finally finished Rage and Ruin, Jennifer L. Armentrout's second installment of The Harbringer trilogy and oh my goodness it was everything! And I mean EVERYTHING!!! Jennifer never ceases to amaze me with the books she writes. I always feel like I have a favorite book when it comes to her but each and every release continues to prove me wrong! She is just that outstanding!!

So yeah, I read Storm and Fury as an ARC last year, was denied an ARC at every turn for this one, so my memory was rough for this one since I had that 1+year wait for it. I had my notes though which were helpful and I tried taking more for this book because omg this is soooo not a middle book at all! It's a second installment!!!

Trinity and Zayne the ever complicated duo who both seem to feel things for the other, but yet they each seem to hold back from the other for their own reasons. But their emotional turmoil will have to take a backseat for there's too much going on in their lives to take a timeout for romance. The Harbringer is still at large causing havoc and chaos, killing Wardens left and right. Every night they go hunting for it, but every night they come up with nothing.

In the meantime, there's still the mystery of what is going on with the senator and the renovations at the high school, just what is being planned there and all that. Where did Bael go? Is he behind any of the Harbringer's recent acts lately? So many questions, and not enough answers to be honest. I mean we get answers to the great majority of them, but there was still one that made me go what's up with that factoid?!

A decent chunk of time is spent (sporadically, so not in one or two heapings) on the relationship between Zayne and Trinity. They have a lot of personal trust issues, it would seem, to work out before they can commit to anything with the other. It seems when one is ready, the other isn't. There's a lot of back and forth you have to get through before the sparks fly and the feelings get revealed and hashed out. But then of course, you have to remember, this is book two in a trilogy, there's still a WHOLE other book we have to get through, that's 500+ pages of more turmoil we'll be subjected to folks! And I am soooo ready for it! Because yes, Jennifer seems to like to tease he readers with these clashes of...emotions, shall we say? But in all the books I've read from her, she never ENDS a series wrong or heartbreakingly...so yeah, I have faith in her!

I truly loved that Layla and Roth and even Cayman came back in this series. Roth had a good chunk of scenes and it felt like these guys were pretty heavily involved in what what going on in the plot. They were all coming together to try to find the big bad and stop it.

Which brings us to the legendary Harbringer himself! We finally meet this guy and just whoa! You're not going to see this one coming! I mean, I didn't...Trin definitely didn't either! Lol.

I can't help but look at other smaller details more closely in this one too. Peanut spends an unusually large amount of time with a girl downstairs who can see him, and I keep wondering about that. Is there something there? Another story, perhaps? Or is it just something Peanut can do off page and have a bit of an interesting afterlife? Only time will tell, I mean Jennifer does like to do series spin-offs and I am all for them! I love staying in these worlds that I love so much, yet seeing them in new ways too, so they're actually like--wait for it--...a whole new world! LOL!

The ending though was what you can usually expect from a book two out of three cliffhanger, and honestly, from Jennifer. Lol. She does like to keep her readers hanging! It's one that shocked me to my core, but then I remember what I told myself about her books, and I'm hoping she doesn't let me down. We shall see. Needless to say the ending is the very definition of heart-racing!

Though it took me far longer to read this one than I would've liked with my new job, I did enjoy it immensely! It was exceedingly well paced. While it does take a large amount of time for the Harbringer to appear, it seems warranted. If they found him to early, a lot would be left out of the story. While this did have the paranormal man hunt going for it, there was still a good emphasis put on the emotional parts between a Warden aka gargoyle and a half human, half angel girl. There's the right balance of action and suspense too, a healthy dose of secrets to keep things edgy and of course, the spine-tingling, heart-burning romances that are truly an art form with Jennifer at the pen!

Rage and Ruin proves to yet again cement Jennifer L. Armentrout as one of the queens of the YA book world! She takes beloved characters and puts them through all the reigns of hell with her readers along for the ride and yet we always come back clamoring for more! She has pretty much put herself on my autobuy list for life! 

This is most definitely a series I would recommend again and again to the reader looking for a YA paranormal book with paranormal beings outside the norm of vampires and werewolves--who are equally awesome too by the way! You don't have to have read The Dark Elements series prior to this either, you pretty much get the lowdown of character history in the first book to understand the previously conceived connections certain characters have. So be sure to dive head first into Storm and Fury asap then read this so we can all commiserate that we now have 11 months to wait for the next and final installment! 

Kudos to Jennifer for yet another amazingly written and certified  GREAT read!



Overall Rating 5/5 stars