I really enjoyed some elements of this and really didn’t enjoy some elements. 

The narrator: they did a great job moving from spanish to english, which I appreciated. I was a little uncomfortable with how young they made the main character sound given the content of the book but honestly, she was 17 for most of the book so I think that’s pretty fair. The voice of the 5 year olds was also very different which added to the narration. 

First, the good: the gothic scenery, the spanish influence, the phrases in spanish, the description of the food. This is definitely a fascinating gothic world with a lot of unique characteristics. I also enjoyed the darker elements of the book and found them interesting. The mystery was an interesting one to unravel with twists and turns. 

The not so great: wow, the romance. A 17 year old marries an ageless super powerful being within 2 weeks of meeting him? That timeline is ickier than Twilight. I also just didn’t really get it from either of their perspectives. Obviously it has to be insta-love given the timing but they know so little about each other—Sebastian doesn’t even know who he is!—when they are ready to be in love. It just fell really flat for me. Whether the sex scenes are too far for a YA book, I’ll leave to other people to decide for themselves but it’s not exactly fade-to-black, nor did I feel like it was necessary to move the story forward. The ending was also… not great. Facilitating the murder of people due to their having been accused but not convicted of a crime is… an interesting “happily ever after,” I guess.