Preferred this to the second book. Some of this book does get pretty grim, I'm still not sure if it's supposed to be YA or not. Varya's certainly not a child now, all of a sudden. But the romance and sex isn't terrible. She's also making fewer mistakes, or even better, occasionally listening to others now. Just generally less annoying.

I also enjoyed the villains in this one. Perhaps 2022 isn't the time to read about a plague as a weapon though.