Since I tried restarting this series, and I decently enjoyed book 1, but was bored to death by book two, I decided to give book three a whirl, and had no better luck. I guess at the end of the day, here's my problem with the Malus books: I just don't give a damn about Malus as a character at all. It's not that they're badly written, I just ... don't care. Not a whit. I just keep waiting for, basically, a completely different character to pop onscreen. But that doesn't happen, obviously.
Like, in this book, about two chapters in there's this big reveal that Malus' sister ties in to a spooky prophecy, and BAM, of course, Malus ties in as well, and I'm like, if I gave a damn about Malus, this would be a really cool moment. I'd feel intrigued about his eventual destiny. Instead, I was like, oh, God, what next?
So I'm done. Oh, well. I'm glad others like it.