Reread 9/22 nah this is 5 stars wtf was I saying 4.5 for
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4.5 BUT THIS WAS SO GOOD GAHHHHHHHHH

I loved this so much!! It was such an entertaining book and I finished it in less than a day. JACKS MY BBY I LOVE HIM!!! He is such a fascinating character and I’m so excited to see where the rest of his story goes.

I did like Evangeline but she didn’t enchant me as much as Tella, so I’m not entirely convinced I love Jacks/Evangeline yet. Though the romance is fairly minimal between them in this, so there’s definitely room to build. I found Evangeline stubbornly obtuse for most of this book, but I did like her more at the end so I’m hoping it’s uphill from here. I also really loved LaLa and VAMPIRES YAY

Stephanie has mentioned that you don’t have to read Caraval before this, and while I don’t think you *have* to, why wouldn’t you want to!? The little hints at prior events are much more enjoyable having read the original series, plus why you would want to skip Jacks’ introduction, I don’t know. And I also think that some of the worldbuilding would be pretty confusing to a new reader; even though I’ve read Caraval, my memory isn’t super fresh so I was still confused when some past events were referenced. But ANYWHO, THAT ENDING OMG NEED BOOK 2 NOW