My overall feelings on this are a mixed bag, and I don’t know how else to express them, so I’m doing a list format different from what I usually do in my reviews!

What I liked: Most of the ending, which included the opera house fight scene! (Although, I think the reason for why

Coralie corrupted more than Laure did

was a little convoluted.) The imagery! The mix of external and internal conflict (

re: Laure and Coralie’s friendship

)! The bisexuality of it all.

I also felt there was finally sufficient payoff to the feelings of inadequacy and continued abuse within the Paris ballet in Laure’s story, since we’d gone the whole book seeing her gradually spiral, and it didn’t feel like the narrative had to fill you in on the reasons for why anymore.

The meh: The overall ballet backdrop? It wasn’t as immersive as I thought it would be and a lot of the themes explored were surface-level. There was more depth in the Acheron worldbuilding/exposition than the critique of the ballet world (which, by the way, there is so much material to work with).

Which brings me to this point—overall I thought the worldbuilding was unoriginal, mostly done through exposition. This made especially noticeable by the amount of information/speed held back for a sequel.

I can’t think of anything I thought was bad, but although the Laure x Andor romance was cool as a concept, it was subpar in execution. (Maybe it’s because Andor started IMMEDIATELY worshipping Laure. I like when fictional men are down bad for the women they love, but not when it’s so sudden.) I couldn’t see their chemistry and yet their relationship was in so much of the book. 

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pre-review:
3.5 mostly because the final fight (and the part that used the title in a line) was sick as fuck. otherwise my feelings are mixed and I’ll review this later when I’ve made sense of them!!