Zodiac Academy - Final Review!!

When I first started reading this series, I was planning to write a review of every book. However, the series was so good that I found myself picking up the next book to read as soon as I finished the previous book. Pretty soon, I was too far gone down the series to review every book individually. It was too good to put down, even to review!

I finished the series maybe two months ago and haven’t been able to read anything else since. If you’re a reader, then you know how reading a good series will put you in a killer slump when you finish it. After reading such a good series, nothing seems interesting in comparison. It’s been a while, and now I’m ready to try a new series (review coming soon!). So now let’s get into exactly what Zodiac Academy was all about. Spoilers ahead 😜 

If you remember from my last review (or even if you don’t!), the main characters are Tory and Darcy Vega. There are half a dozen other main characters too, including the Heirs [Darius, Seth, Caleb, and Max] and a few others [Lance Orion, Xavier, Diego, Geraldine]. Writing this, it’s so hard to decide if I want to dive into my thoughts of the characters or if I want to do major plot points. The series is pretty long, a full 12 books, but I really only read 10 of the 12. I’m usually not the biggest fan of novellas in series, so I tend to skip those. Regardless, it’s still 10 large books and it would be impossible to summarize every main character or plot point. Let’s just do my favorites!

To start off, there’s half a dozen different romance tropes in this series.

Some I love, others I hate (even if I ended up liking them later on…). My favorite couple in the series is Darcy and Lance. Their story line starts out as professor/student and then turns into hidden romance (not really a surprise right..) and then eventually leads to them being soul mates. I normally hate an age gap love story, but this couple is an exception. Yes, Darcy is more mature and yes, Lance is friends with characters that Darcy is friends with too, but normally that wouldn’t excuse a 6 or 7 year age gap. However, something about their communication style, Lance’s passion and love for Darcy, and their ability to overcome horrible things together just does it for me. They’re my number one couple in the series by far.

A trope that I hate is the “bully romance.” Some of us might call this enemies to lovers, but I feel that in Zodiac Academy, it was definitely more bully than enemies at first. I can usually get behind a well written enemies to lovers story, but this storyline just didn’t do it for me. Tory and Darius started out as enemies, with Darius bullying her relentlessly. He almost killed her in one of the earlier books even. Once their power dynamic starts to even out, we can see how Darius is thinking and feeling from the chapters written in his perspective. From there, some readers might feel like it’s easy to start hoping for Tory and Darius to get together, but for me, it didn’t feel like that. Eventually, we find out that they’re destined by the stars to be together. Tory rejects the bond, and the two are star crossed. Essentially, cursed to always want each other but never be able to be with each other. It wasn’t until they couldn’t be together that the two actually started treating each other with any amount of respect. Unfortunately for my morals, I am a sucker for the soul mate trope - add yearning on top of that and I’m done for. So even though I don’t think that you should ever be with a person who continually disrespects, humiliates, and hurts you (including attempting to kill you..), I did end up supporting Tory and Darius as a couple. In my defense, I didn’t like them together until almost the last three books. I do have some morals….

We also had some LGBT+ romance stories in the series! I loved reading the representation and their stories. Two of the Heirs end up falling in love with each other, which is fantastic bi representation. They also end up being soul mates, spoiler alert. They don’t end up together until the end of the series, so the reader doesn’t get to enjoy much time with them as a couple. Maybe that’s something that’s explored in one of the novellas and I missed it, but I would have liked to have more chapters with them as a couple.

The representation continues with a polyamorous couple. I will say that I didn’t enjoy reading about this relationship as much, but it’s less to do with the polyamory and more to do with the Pegasus-ness of it. Reading about how their shifted forms affect them as Fae in connection to their relationship dynamic was a bit too much for me. Plus, the authors did a great job of writing one of the people in the relationship as a little sibling to an Heir, almost too good of a job. It made reading the more adult scenes with him in the polyamorous couple a little uncomfortable. Overall, not my favorite thing to read about.

The next two people who coupled up are two that I want to talk about individually first. The last Heir, Max, is the only main character who I feel like I didn’t get to know throughout the series. He was always a little boring, a little bland, and not the focus of attention for the majority of the series. When he was talked about, it was rarely with an independent story arc and more typically with him helping another character. He gets coupled up with Geraldine, one of the twin’s friends and biggest supporter. She’s full of personality and is a badass all the way around. At first, she’s giving Hermione Granger in a bad way, but as the story progresses, the reader comes to love Geraldine and her quirkiness. To see such a dynamic character end up with one who doesn’t seem fully fleshed out was a miss for me.

Plot Points That I Loved

Throughout the series, a theme that is constantly repeated is how valued it is to stand up and fight for what you want. I love that this was so apparent in the series- we get to live through Darcy and Tory’s experiences and see them learn how to fight for themselves in the Fae world. It teaches such an important lesson to any young readers.

Another theme that is highly present in the books, while cheesy, is the power of friendship. I feel like so often we see characters only feeling fulfilled after finding their partner or choosing their partner over their friends. Regardless of what your take on that is, in this series, characters are made stronger by their friendships. Partner versus friends wasn’t a plot point that came up, showcasing how important it is to have a balance of relationships. Frequently, in battle scenes or what have you, it was a friend who saved the day, not the partner. I love the friendship representation and think that it’s such a great reminder to value your friends.

Things I Didn’t Love

• A lot of typos in the books. definitely needed to be edited better

• Minimal punctuation. I missed my commas reading this series. So many sentences felt a year long due to poor punctuation. The reading experience could be elevated so much more with better punctuation.

• White font on grey pages. The first page of each chapter has white font on grey pages with a white design on the background. It was a fight to read and really made the reading experience less enjoyable.

• Lazy writing. I think that if you’re going to commit to writing a series themed on the zodiac, it should be either a full 12 book series (no novellas!!) or a 4 book series, divided by zodiac sign element. To have the full series be 9 books, but include option novellas (but then one of them isn’t optional and is crucial to the plot??) is a bad look. Why do I have the zodiac series on my bookshelf but I’m missing signs from the zodiac?

• SA chapters. Towards the end of the series, there’s a few chapters with SA. There is mature content all in this series, talking about discrimination, murder, trauma, abuse, etc. It’s all deep stuff, but personally I don’t think that SA should be put in content to be consumed for entertainment. Those chapters took me out of the story a little bit and weren’t enjoyable to read.

Things I Did Love (again..)

• Alternating perspectives. I LOVE alternating perspectives in a series (probably from reading Rick Riordan’s books as a kid). In ZA, the reader gets POVs from a variety of different characters. You’re able to follow along with different plot points and build a tension while reading that a single POV couldn’t create.

• Long series. I love starting a series and knowing exactly what I’m going to be reading next… the next book! This series kept me occupied for a few months.

• The story. I loved the creativity of using astrology in fairy fantasy. If you know me, then you know that I love astrology. This series combined a little of everything I like - astrology, romance, fantasy. Even when the writing left something to be desired, the story itself kept me turning pages.

• Romance. It really did feel like each couple I read about was different - different dynamics, interactions, etc. I feel like that would have been hard to write just due to the sheer volume of characters, but overall each couple had a unique feel to their romance.

Final Thoughts

I’m already at 1600 words on this review, so I’m going to wind it down. I loved this series. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever read, but it did keep me entertained and even put me in a slump for a good while after. It made me feel things, made me think, and even kept me thinking about it when I wasn’t reading. Definitely a series worth looking into if you’re not a major book critic! If you are a major book critic and want to read it, don’t say I didn’t warn you..

Talk soon,

Mary