I received an ARC through NetGalley - my review is voluntary and honest.

"I changed your diapers when you were a baby and I'm going to change them again when you're too old to remember who I am."

Aftermarket Afterlife raises the stakes to a level that I don't think we've seen in this series before. Most of this book felt like I was being ping-ponged between different family crises, which to be fair is probably how Mary feels. All of these people from Alice downward are Mary's kids, and she'll be damned if she ever lets them forget it.

So, this book was... chaotic. It's also very much the 13th book in a series - usually an Incryptid book focuses on one subset of the family, but this one connected everyone, and there were so many cameos from side characters from all the past plotlines that for once I was actually glad for the recaps that I'm usually annoyed by. 

I loved seeing all the Consequences for past plotlines, but there were also downsides to this "preparing for war" book. Namely, I'm not really sure how much higher the stakes can go at this point, how much higher we can take this series before it feels like "we defeated God but then God's more powerful evil brother showed up".

I also loved that this was a Mary book, which meant some neat ghost adventures, starlight and all, and Mary dealing with her afterlife changing a major way after the crossroads disappeared. She has her family, but the Rules have changed, and in fact they are still changing, and she might not like the way they end up.

Still, another downside of all the adoptions and new kids is that, well... the family has grown too large. This book definitely deals with that too. Fucking ouch.

Overall, this was a difficult book to read, and it made me uncertain about my will to continue reading the series. But it still had enough things I loved that I'll probably find myself coming back anyway.