I still think Middlegame was the strongest of this series and probably would have been just fine as a standalone. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy this and Seasonal Fears, but I do think that McGuire gets too caught up in showing us that she knows exactly how everything works. Like, okay, I get it, you've obviously thought this through, but maybe I don't need to read it all? Both of Middlegame's sequels suffered from the same problem, where fully the first half was set-up and explanations for everything, but I don't need all that, just tell me the damn story.