Wow. What a ride this book was.

This August I'm using a 'jar tbr' to decide what I read this month. I was very excited when I grabbed a paper with this title written on it. I've wanted to read this ever since I first found it, but even after I finally bought it, I didn't pick it up because big books scare me. Once you start, it can feel like the book will never end.

Even though I might say some negative things, overall I really did enjoy this book and will definitely be excited to read the sequel when it is released. This is definitely a book I would recommend...

... though, if you're fairly new to the whole 'faeries' thing with books, I would recommend reading some other books with these themes first. 'Cause wow this got confusing sometimes. I've only read a few books with faeries before, and none were as complicated and confusing as this one. From the beginning there are many different terms thrown around, some get explained, some don't. But even with explanation, at the end of the book they still kinda confused me.

In this book we have:
- immortal beings
- mortal beings
- faeries
- fae
- unseelie court for all seasons
- seelie court for all seasons
- lesidhe fae
- sidhe fae
- gods
- furies
- the wild hunt
- titans
- and all different kinds of other beings, that I don't know whether they're fae or faerie in this book. They made vampires a kind of faerie (or fae, I don't remember, I'm not used to these two terms being different terms). But fox spirits are also mentioned. And trolls and goblins and all kinds of faerie beings.

So yeah, if this is your first go at faerie/fae stories, be aware. I kinda wished there was some kind of dictionary or whatever included to explain these terms to people who don't know what they mean.

I was surprised - in a good way - when I saw a trigger/content warning in the beginning of the book. I hope more books will do this! I'm not one who usually needs this, the only things that freak me out are sexual scenes and even mention of an animal being hurt, which thankfully doesn't happen that much in Young Adult. But for people who do need it, this is very handy.

This is a book where you have to pay 100% of your attention. Even a second of distraction, and chances are you'd have to reread a whole passage. I'm easily distracted, so many times I had to reread a few pages. But even when I gave this book my full attention, I had to reread some parts because I just couldn't understand what the hell was happening.

But besides rereading sentences, I also skipped some. Cause wow everything had so much details. Every character got a handful of sentences, even characters who only appeared once. And every room got full details. The floors, the walls, the ceiling. For me, sometimes so much details that I didn't care and skipped the 4 sentences to go back to what was happening. Don't get me wrong, detail is important and good, but too much detail... well, for me it was too much anyways, but I've read some reviews who agree with me.

Here and there I noticed some possible mistakes, like something being mentioned twice but with the opposite description or one person says something, but later someone says that someone else said that. But those are human mistakes that would definitely happen to me if I ever end up writing that book that's been in my head for years, so I'm not going to remove any points for this in my review, but I still felt like mentioning it.

We have four main characters, however two of these actually don't appear that much. Most of these chapters are from Arlo's point of view, and don't get me wrong I don't mind that all because I really enjoy reading from her perspective. Nausicaä also had some chapters from her point of view, but the other two, Vehan and Aurelian, only had a few, and I kept forgetting they were in this book until they finally, after more than half of the book, met Arlo and Nausicaä. I kinda wished, even though I loved reading from Arlo's point of view, that there was more of an equal amount of chapters with the point of views. I felt like I barely got to know Vehan and Aurelian the way we got to know the other two main character. Hell, I feel like we got to know some side character better than those two.

Again, I did really enjoy this book. Even if it sometimes felt really long and a bit exhausting to read, and I feel like it could've been a little shorter without all the extra details. It's a good book with a promising story, an interesting world building and characters with potential. It also has a lot of representation for the lgbtq+ community.

"A sidhe prince, a lesidhe guard, an ironborn girl, and a former fury - they seemed less like a serious investigation team and more like the lead-in to some terrible joke."

TL;DR

+ A lot of lgbtq+ rep
+ interesting worl building
+ I really liked Arlo
+ Also, not mentioned before, but I loved her scenes with her cousins
+ Characters with potential
+ interesting story
+ A content/trigger warning! Yes!
+ I definitely enjoyed reading this

- if you get distracted reading, there's a possibility you have to read some sentences
- sometimes I had to reread some things even if I didn't get distracted
- so many terms are used, it got really confusing sometimes
- even though they're main characters Vehan and Aurelian don't have a lot of point of view chapters
- so many details that I skipped because I didn't care what this random character who never again appeared looked like and what he was doing and what the room he was standing in looked like even though the room would never again be mentioned