'𝑻𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕 '

__________________________

My feelings about this book are really quite mixed.

It ambled along quite nicely, and for the most part I had an excellent time. These characters, they were so despicable to me in early pages, are now quite dear to me in different ways (except Reina, she's the worst). 

The themes are interesting, the plot (for there is one, somewhere, if you squint) is intriguing and I want to know what happens.

But. The pacing is challenging. It is glacial. And that's not to say there is no action - when it happens, it always slaps - the reveals, the twists etc, are excellent and satisfying. But it remains hard to come by.

My cerebral ego is struggling - it all starts to feel like it's coalescing into something I can grasp... And then it all fritters away into scenes of catty bickering or languid misanthropy. And I have all the time for misanthropy but I also kind of wish to know what the f*** is going on as well.

So... Patchy. On first viewing it feels like a 3, but overall I had a cracking time reading it, so it will be a 4. I'm not confident that it's going to maintain any kind of momentum in book 3 but we move anyway.