3.5 | she remains one of my favorite authors but I have to admit this series (as well as the October series) is feeling to formulaic lately. With Toby I can still sort of hang but in this series the voices of Verity, Antimony, and Alice are all just too similar. Of course they have distinct hobbies and features, but the whole reverent, sarcastic, “joking about throwing themselves into danger” attitude is sort of the same book over and over. I think she’s also struggling with the balance that is a natural challenge for any long running series – over explaining the world you’ve built to try to accommodate newer readers well boring the folks who have read the entire series.

This installment is fun and I appreciated a chance to hear more about Alice, who has been mentioned in every other book and always seemed like one of the more interesting characters. I’m glad we finally got here. I don’t know that I found her sympathetic or that we were supposed to, but in all, I enjoyed it.