Omg. Everything. It is such a lame book. I think I ranted to Clomp about reading spoilers for the sequel and how my favorite pair breaks up, then one of them gets a new lover, and that lover dies for a stupid reason. With my favorite couple, the last scene with them in the book made me want to stab it, because it was cute, and all very committed, and I'm just like, "You b***h. You're setting us up for the heartbreak! I can tell!"
And not only that, but if the death is the sequel is for a stupid reason, this author is the queen of romantic interest deaths for stupid reasons, because the MC's love interest dies. For no reason. I mean really. They're all mages, basically, and can give each other energy, and the love interest gives MC energy to defeat the big baddie...gives her ALL his energy and dies. FOR NO REASON. WTF BOOK.
And then the third pairing, which is the love interest that turned into nothing and the random woman he hooks up with...I swear that pairing only happened so she could write scenes with this gorgeous woman being sexy. Those two really served no real purpose in the book other than to have sex.
And my pairing didn't even kiss "on camera", and they are the only pairing that I consider...legit. The other two were very arbitrary...
And the plot. *rolls eyes* Entire thing could have been avoided. It was...stupid. It had so much potential. But it was stupid.