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The Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace's enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete--all except yokai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy. Mari has spent a lifetime training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren't hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yokai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari's fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yokai outcast. Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku in this beautifully written, edge-of-your-seat YA...
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The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5)

The Last Olympian ends this series well while opening up the possibility (now fulfilled) of more works in this universe. The twists feel clever and appropriate to the earlier books, the battles are gripping, and I'm not ready for it to be over.

This book accomplishes a very tricky thing (and, frankly, does it quite well): It has to cap off a series which is literally the stuff of gods, have stakes to match, pull off an appropriate resolution, and successfully make the pivot to explain the state of the world after the battle when the prophecy is fulfilled while still leaving room for more books in this universe. Speaking of the prophecy, that is handled well: It feel appropriately tricky in the pattern of mythic prophecies, the resolution defies expectations without feeling cheap, and there's enough groundwork laid in this book to match up the final resolution with the expectation laid by the earlier books. Without spoiling anything, I like how it was handled, and it worked out better than if it had been as was expected based on assumptions made early in the series. This assessment applies to one big thing and several smaller plot points. Tldr: having the twists made it more powerful instead of feeling cheap.

I wasn't expecting to be blown away by this series, but this final book feels better than how it started. I was worried that the casual affect and quippy nature of the main character, Percy, would be grating after a while, but around book three I stopped worrying about it and just enjoyed the story.

I like this book, I would recommend the whole series, and I'll definitely put the other books in this universe in my queue to get to someday. I want to spend more time in this world, and I wish I'd done so sooner.

CW for violence, major character death.

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