Book review: Hell Bent

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo is such an interesting book. It's book two in a trilogy, and it feels like a book two, like an Empire Strikes Back where the heroes are on the back foot and learning and growing in their own power. The main character, Alex, faces a lot of setbacks and roadblocks while attempting to achieve this book's goal, and she suffers a lot of self-doubt and personal despair; she still fights through it all, never truly giving up. It was especially interesting to read because it the trilogy structure really stood out to me as I was reading. The book was doing double-duty, acting as a (mostly) self-contained arc of catalyst, all is lost, and success, but also acting as the 2nd act of the over all story, with all the plot elements associated with that. It's a beautifully written book, as a lot of Bardugo's work are. The descriptions of Yale and New Haven are masterfully done, turning the school and town into a character all its own. One sentence really struck me as…