After a lot of debating back and forth, I finally settled on 3-stars for this one and I'm kinda bummed about that. I first heard about this book through BookTube; I was really excited about it & excited to see where it might lead! I wouldn't say that I was disappointed, but I wasn't blown away, either. 

To summarize this as short as possible (because to be fair it's a cluster-you-know-what): You're following Peyote who is in hell. He works on the Fifth Floor which is the "deals" department and his job is to get those living on Earth to make a deal which results in trading their soul for whatever it is they want. He's working on his 'holy grail' of deals so that he gets a hefty reward. He's also training a protege Calamity- and she's got quite a target herself.

Here enters the Harrison family: Peyote's target. Silas and Lily have the seemingly perfect family with their two children; Sean and Mickey. But, nothing on the outside is quite what it seems and the Harrison's have a lot of secrets..or do they? 

So, the first third of this book is the set-up. I was really into it. I was enjoying the character development, learning about what makes all of the characters tick, and where I 'thought' the story was headed. You're flipping back and forth between the Harrison's on Earth and Peyote in hell & starting to see how their lives intertwine. Or so I thought. 

 The middle section - about 250 out of the almost 400 pages - was uncomfortable chaos. Silas has a creepy crush on his daughter's best friend Ruth and it's blatantly obvious and uncomfortable to read. Lily, the Mom, is a total downer about the summer trip. And this best friend Ruth, she's got my spider-senses tingling but IDK why. There is also some weird stuff going on in hell between Peyote and Cal and I'm going to be perfectly honest, I cannot make heads or tails of what was actually happening or how it was important to the story. 

Then, we reach the final stretch - about 30 pages, maybe 40 tops - and shit hits the fan. There's a major plot twist, a bunch of information that was unknown is brought to light and you're jumping back and forth trying to figure out what is going to happen next and how this book is going to possibly wrap up. 


So..with all of that being said. I gave this two stars because there was so much muddling in the middle. I don't shy away from long books but when there is nothing happening..it's hard to want to pick the book back up and keep going. The partner Cal in hell being thrown into the mix just really confused me and her storyline played a major part in which I just couldn't wrap my head around. There was also a lot of talk about...Trey?...another character in hell who played a pretty dominant role and then he just 'poofed' and you never heard from him again. 

But, finally, I did up this to three stars because I'm adding an extra star for the ending and how truly surprised and unsuspecting I was of some things that took place there in the very end. If the entirety of the book could have had even a 1/4 of that flow; the overall rating for this would have been much, much higher. 

Seeing as this was this author's debut Novel; I can say that I will continue to read additional stories that she publishes in order to see where she goes from here. I think the potential is there but the execution lacks and that's what killed the book overall for me. I'm curious to see what others think.

So, if you're interested in a unique spin on the afterlife and don't mind overly long boring sections; then this might be the book for you!