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All of Our Demise by Amanda Foody, C.L. HermanAll of Us Villains #2
Published by Tor Teen on August 30, 2022
Age Group & Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult
Representation: queer protagonists
Format: eBook
Source: Library
The epic conclusion to Amanda Foody and C.L. Herman’s New York Times bestselling All of Us Villains duology that's The Hunger Games with magic.
“I feel like I should warn you: this is going to be absolutely brutal.”
For the first time in this ancient, bloodstained story, the tournament is breaking. The boundaries between the city of Ilvernath and the arena have fallen. Reporters swarm the historic battlegrounds. A dead boy now lives again. And a new champion has entered the fray, one who seeks to break the curse for good... no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process.
As the curse teeters closer and closer to collapse, the surviving champions each face a choice: dismantle the tournament piece by piece, or fight to the death as this story was always intended.
Long-held alliances will be severed. Hearts will break. Lives will end. Because a tale as wicked as this one was never destined for happily ever after.
Trigger & Content Warnings: alcohol, blood, body horror, child abuse, confinement, death, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, fire, gore, grief, kidnapping, murder, physical abuse, self harm, torture, violence, vomit, violence, trauma
I loved All of Us Villains when I first read it last year, so when All of Our Demise came out, I just had to get my hands on it! Unfortunately, the universe hasn’t been terribly kind to me, though, so while I picked this up around November of last year, I took a long detour and didn’t pick it back up until recently.
(I am invested in finishing at least one book from 2023 End of Year TBR. Finally, this book has broken free from Currently Reading purgatory! Except now I have three others…)
All of Our Demise is the sequel in the All of Us Villains duology and picks up right where the first book ends (which was a massive cliffhanger). The remaining champions are divided into two different alliances: Isobel, Briony, Finley are hoping to break the tournament’s curse after their success with one relic while Gavin and Alistair are much less hopeful and seek to carry on the centuries old tradition. With Alistair, though, he now has even more reason to keep the tournament going, so one can’t really blame him for being less inclined.
The tournament is breaking, becoming unstable, and with that, Ilvernath’s inhabitants and the champions can move in and out between the city itself and the arena’s boundaries. With A Tradition of Tragedy (the tell-all from an anonymous source) throwing the city into the world’s spotlight from the first book, there’s now even more of a spotlight. Everyone, especially the media, swarms the area, wanting to get the front-row seat.
The second book doesn’t feature snippets from the book like the first did, though. Instead, it features snippets from the outside world as they cover the champions and the latest gossip in the city. I personally didn’t care for it and skimmed over those because I didn’t feel like it really added to the story as much as the first did, but I did have an appreciation for it, since that gave us a look at how the media was covering the events and portraying the champions vs what really happened.
Like its predecessor, this is told in the same four POVs: Alistair Lowe, Gavin Grieve, Briony Thorburn and Isobel Macasclan. I loved getting back into their heads from the first book, but I loved it even more with All of Our Demise. Foody and Herman add more to their backstory, but there’s a little less emphasis here since All of Us Villains covers this; this one focuses more on them unpacking their generational trauma.
But while the main focus is on the four POVs, the authors also explore some of the other characters that play a greater role in the sequel and the trauma they’ve experienced. I overall liked everyone’s character development throughout the duology, and there were so many points in the book where I just wanted to give them all a hug. Because wow, there’s a lot to unpack. It’s hard to say which ones were my favorite since I love them all individually, but if I had to choose, it would probably be Gavin or Alistair. Maybe even Reid to an extent.
Like the first, All of Our Demise starts out slow and doesn’t pick up until later; I ended up struggling for a good 25-30% of the book’s beginning since there’s a lot of focus on the outside world in addition to within the tournament grounds. I don’t think that’s my issue considering the rest of the book goes back and forth, but I also can’t put my finger on what exactly didn’t work out for me here. Part of this might be attributed to my reading mood, part of it might just be personal preference.
Regardless, I did feel the pacing of the book matched the pacing of the characters’ progression as they work toward ending the tournament. There’s not much of an urgency from Briony, Isobel, and Finley at the beginning since they seem to be gathering their scattered ducks together. But as they begin to run out of time with the tournament becoming more unstable with each move they make, I can practically feel their low-key panic.
There’s also a lot going on in this one, though, especially as the book gets closer to the conclusion, and this could’ve very well added to the increase in the pacing as well. Sometimes I felt like there was a bit too much going on, but it was also more niggling at the back of my mind rather than glaringly obvious and in my face.
I truly thought this was going to be a flop when I got a decent chunk through and felt kind of bored, but All of Our Demise turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable read by the end. Compared to the first, I don’t think I enjoyed this as much, but it’s a very solid conclusion to the duology. Looking back across both books, this was an excellent execution that built on top of the first’s foundation. Overall, I enjoyed myself, and I’m excited to see this duo’s next book!
Sophia started blogging in February 2012 for the hell of it and is surprisingly still around. She has a GIF for nearly everything, probably listens to too much K-Pop and is generally in an existential crisis of sorts (she's trying her best). More of her bookish reviews and K-Pop Roundups can be found at The Arts STL.
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I’m forever sad that I missed out on this buddy reading opportunity but I’m glad you enjoyed it! I skimmed because it’s still on my tbr but knowing it’s slow and picks up to a satisfying conclusion is useful, so thank you!
I was eager to read All of Our Demise because I had enjoyed All of Us Villains so much when I had first read it the previous year. Sadly, though, the universe hasn’t been very kind to me, so even though I started this in November of last year, I took a long break and didn’t start it again until late.
Over all, the book was worth it, and I really felt it, but I also tried to find it on other platforms too, but I didn’t get it. I think this should get published on other online publishing platforms like Shabd.in so it can reach more people.