I wasn’t sure what I wanted to rate this and I’m still incredibly conflicted. I’ll start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and based off of that alone, I probably could’ve given it 5/5 stars. That being said, I think this book has some issues. This book very strongly reminded me of Caraval. The story was incredibly similar but instead of a circus theme, it was paranormal. Because of the similarities to Caraval, it made the ending predictable to me.

I think my biggest issue with this book was the main character. It bothered me how weak Ophelia’s character was. It felt more like Blackwell was the one doing the Phantasma trials than Ophelia was. Almost every time that Ophelia was in trouble, she immediately called for Blackwell to swoop in and save the day. I’m not a huge fan of the “damsel in distress” trope. I kept wishing that Ophelia would really grow into becoming a stronger character and utilize her necromancy magic more. Her attitude bothered me too. I hated how she treated other characters at times. She was a “user.” Whenever she went through any emotional or mental distress, she immediately turned to Blackwell to use him for sex to avoid confronting her feelings as well as her trying to push him away.

Ophelia and Blackwell’s relationship had issues as well. It felt rushed.

The timeline of this book was about a week and somehow that was enough time to fall madly in love to the point that she would sacrifice her life for him.

The ending felt rushed and I don’t think the trials held as much terror as I was expecting them to.

Flaws aside, I still devoured this book. I thought this was a fun read and if I based my rating off of feels alone, I would’ve scored this higher. I loved Caraval so this blurb really enticed me.

As much as Ophelia’s character bothered me, I loved the OCD representation in this. I haven’t come across many books where OCD is written in or written well. I thought the way it was represented was done really well and in a way that you can see the severity of the disorder.