There was more than one culprit here - small-mindedness fed off religion just as surely as the other way around

I finished the book a week ago and in that time most of my strong opinions about the story and series has left me. The flashbacks became less annoying but their prominence in the final book was a bit much. There was also a shift in who was the focus of attention, so, who was the lead in the series? Kelsea or someone from the past?

Whether the topic was physics or history, it made no difference; trying to do the right thing so often ended in wrong.

Regardless of how the story was delivered there were some strong messages about being better as humanity and that human nature may always be predictably self destructive. Shielding lessons from the past is not a way to correct errors going forward but not acknowledging those lessons is also a way to achieve failure; which is ultimately what the story is about. Is humanity destined to repeat mistakes of the past or can it learn and course correct?

A church was only as good or bad as the philosophy that emanated from the pulpit.

Yes, the ending came out of left field, but this story was full of those surprises and course corrections. The ending was a cop-out and may have undermined the story but I'll accept it. The themes about right and wrong still work and we need to learn from the past to be better people but it was presented in an odd way.

All of her rage now focused on the people who followed Row, people who should have known better.

It took several years to get to this series, I don't regret the read but on the whole it was not what I expected. I am fairly comfortable with fantasy stories so when one zigs when I expected a zag isn't entirely a bad, but I wonder if this series could have worn a different genre (eg: sci-fi or YA) and had more success on the delivery.