didn’t think i liked this series as much as i did! i found the first book to be fine up until the mid-point, but with this i was seated and ready the entire time.

i will say the only reason i think i gave a fuck about this is because emily is the silliest billiest ever and js so charming. plus having a whole book where wendell’s identity is out in the open is fun! i found every other (human) character inconsequential though. poe and snowball own my life tho omg was i so happy with the fae interactions in this. left no crumbs!!!! 

i’ll be real and say the minute i finished this, i would’ve given it 4-stars. but now ive left this review to the side (fuck you uni) i am thinking back on the book and realising…. wow no it was fine. it was a book. i had a good time reading it but it wasn’t particularly remarkable and deserves a 3-star rating instead. which honestly is the exact same way i felt about the first book which is a funny situation.

the plot of this was….. Mid. what happened with de grey felt anticlimatic, and it felt like the first book was being repeated again in some way. i can’t even say it served any thematic purpose because it kind of didn’t… like just because emily points out “hey this happened in the first book” doesn’t make it a witty plot point or negate the fact it very much felt repeated. in many ways this book felt like it was trying to replicate the success of the first, but instead it ended up feeling like a cheap knockoff, where technically even though the stakes were higher in this story, based on how the first book went, there was really no tension. any sticky situation emily was i knew she’d get out of it. and what’s worse is that at least the first book she faced some consequences!! homegirl lost a finger!!!! what stakes does she face here? the uni doesn’t kick her out, she doesn’t lose any relationships, everyone at the end of the story is fine and everything works out perfectly. idk it made me less excited because i felt like i’d already been here before. at least the first book had novelty. 

this series is really weird to me, because in one way i find it so unremarkable, not to say bad but just…. Fine. yet i keep finding myself coming back. in the moment reading the books i do feel like i have a good time, but i think that’s due to the atmosphere and the funny dialogue at times. after any amount of time away from this series i look back and go “oh why did i like it so much. i’m trying to think back and i actually can’t tell you why i was having fun”. i think a lot of the draw defo is emily and wendell, but if you look even the slightest bit beyond them…. these books fall apart.

i say all that but i will be reading the last book and i can almost guarantee i will have the same reaction and criticisms. i am nothing but a creature of habit.