Into the Gray by Geanna Culbertson (Crisanta Knight #7)

 

Warning, there are spoilers in this review. 

My rating: 9.75 / 10

Into the Gray is the seventh book in the amazing Crisanta Knight series by Geanna Culbertson that I have been devouring ever since the first book, Protagonist Bound came out. And oh my flipping goodness, this book was perfect. This novel was absolutely chock-full of shocking moments, twists and turns, with a hefty portion of defining character moments all nicely wrapped up in an amazing plot. Additionally, this book expanded so much more in terms of lore and backstory to this fantastical fairytale world that I already love, making it even richer and bigger than before. To put it simply, this book was just plain awesome.

 

Where do I even begin? I definitely did not see almost all of the plot twists coming, and they majorly shocked me. Probably the biggest OMG moments were Crisanta getting the genie servitude sentencing after her trial, and also right at the ending of the book, when she absorbed Mark’s Shadow, per the plans of the evil antagonists. I just know that these two things will definitely make a great impact on the upcoming and final two books. Crisanta’s choices that she will make from now onwards will strongly define the climax and end of the story (which I hope will be a happily ever after!) Also, Fairy Godmother Lenore now has almost complete control of Crisanta and her powers, which is also a really big deal. I personally still feel like Lenore is acting very shady, despite some of the more positive sides we’ve seen of her recently, and it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if it would turn out that she was working with the antagonists.

 

This book was also the book that probably shaped Crisanta and her relationship to her magic the most out of all of the books so far. The book’s title really does sum up her journey with her magic, as well as her magic powers as journeying into the morally “gray area” perfectly. Crisanta begins to really change her own views about certain things that previously she had found incredibly questionable, such as killing enemies.

Throughout the book, she becomes convinced that killing them mercilessly, and simply seeing them as nameless, faceless entities is alright. Lenore’s missions that she has Crisanta go on due to her genie servitude fuel this almost self-righteous attitude. I honestly was quite taken aback by her sudden intense change in attitude, and genuinely began to worry for her, which was also mirrored in some of the character’s own reaction, such as Crisa’s BFF SJ and Kai.

Although I definitely believe that Crisanta should gain some more confidence over her powers and stop questioning herself for doing things that normal male heroes are allowed to do (hello, double standards!), such as vanquish their enemies, I definitely do think that she was sliding off into the deep end. There was one scene where she was literally torturing someone to get information from him, by killing him and then resurrecting him with her powers, which was just really, really bad on so many levels.

However, despite all of that, Crisanta also reaches a turning point at the end of the book, where she becomes convicted that her actions were not all good and that she has to have a serious attitude change about how she has been going about killing people left and right.

 

Personally, I’m very curious to see to where her character development will take her, especially now that she has a Shadow living within her, which will try to bring out the more gray, and black areas of her personality. However, I am confident that she will be able to in the end make the right choices, especially because we have already seen proof that her own will power is strong enough to withstand the drawing of Pure Magic’s Disease.

 

I also really liked seeing Chance and Crisanta together, going on dates in this book. I’m honestly not sure whether their relationship will end up progressing any further than it is now, but I kind of…ship it? They were really very sweet together, and it does seem like Chance has changed. Although, there is a part of me that is slightly worried that he will end up being evil, which I really hope won’t happen. It’s also really obvious that Daniel has been jealous of them the whole time, which really irked me. I totally think that he has feelings for Crisa, but I honestly just find it so unfair when a boy gets jealous and acts incredibly rude about a girl he likes dating someone else, when he is in a relationship with someone else.

I personally am feeling very conflicted on the whole Crisanta and Daniel front. On the one hand, I can picture them being a cute couple, but on the other hand, there’s never been any explicit romance between the two of them, and I’ve only really seen them as good friends over the last few books. Furthermore, Daniel is also currently in love with Kai, and Chance has also pretty much established himself as a sweet cute potential boyfriend for Crisanta. I guess we will just have to see!

 

As a whole, this book was just utter perfection, and I am super excited to get to Midnight Law! I already have my own speculations about what the next book could be about. However, I certainly did not miss that tiny little forshadowing hint that was very sneakily placed in Crisanta’s own trial scene, where the Book of Binding, which had another spell called Midnight Law. So I am definitely incredibly intrigued about what that will end up being.