Ever since Lazlo Strange was a little orphan boy, he dreamed of the distant city of Weep. Growing up as a librarian’s apprentice, Lazlo gathered bits and pieces of this magical, faraway land that others disregarded as fairytale fluff.

When a group of Weep warriors appear, Lazlo musters up the courage to speak to them in their native tongue and be invited on a journey to The Unseen City. He soon finds out that he’s been invited not merely to see the city but to save it from the remnants of a powerful and cruel set of gods and goddesses.

A mystery leads to a journey leads to an adventure leads to a miraculous reveal, all wrapped in the beautiful and fast-moving prose of Laini Taylor.

Spoiler

Plot synopsis spoilers for my aging brain: Sarai meets Lazlo in his dreams and they fall in love. Eril-Fane finds out that there are godspawn still living in the citadel and that one of the godspawn can control ghosts. Sarai and Lazlo try to bring their respective sides closer to compromise but come up against fear, prejudice, and the thirst for revenge. One of the foreigners tries to blow up the immovable metal structure. It causes the ground to split and the citadel to start to fall down. Lazlo stops the citadel from tipping over and we discover he is a godspawn but not before Sarai falls off the citadel to her death. Lazlo pleads for her soul to be saved by the soul trapper and she does, but now she's under her manipulative control.

Spoiler

Point that I cried: When Lazlo finally gets to touch Sarai's body but she's dead and Sarai's ghost watches jealously from above