You can see all my reviews here: Books Are The New Black

Oh, Doors of Midnight, you were such a beast. I had a love/relationship with this book. I found some of the same issues in book one appearing in book two. Mostly, it's slow and has terrible pacing.

We start pretty much where we left off in book one! I was so into this book for the first 35%. My favorite parts of the story are by far, when he's in the Ashram and his present circumstances. The characters in this book are fantastic. I love how they all intertwine and bring important lessons to each other.

I think that Virdi has such amazing and beautiful prose. This book is full of beautiful and quotable moments and lessons. It is where his writing shines. At times, it can get repetitive and becomes too much. Virdi also has a lot of humor, which I'm glad he does. It's needed throughout many instances in Ari's life lessons. One thing to note- he's narrating this story from the present, so you know he doesn't ever die during all his "close calls." My biggest issue with the writing is that Virdi does too good of a job making things so slow and hard to read. The middle of this book is arduously slow. I'm a huge mood reader and it is hard to continue.

The dessert is where he spends most of this time and it just didn't seem all that important. Sure, he learned a lot of lessons, but it was so boring. Even though it was hard to get through, I adored Enshae. She was an amazing character, and I was glad to see their 'one hundred and one' nights together. The doors at midnight section of the book was fascinating but also felt slow. The last 20% of the book is where it picked back up for me.

The characters will keep me coming back for more. The plot and story we are chasing is fascinating, and want to know more about. Ari's story and all the stories told about him were so fun to see. It's so interesting how stories take off, and he didn't have to do much. One of the things I adore is that Ari is always about rooting for the underdog. Ari doesn't move away from that, and it's appreciated.

Again, this book is too long. It is the biggest and same issue I had with book one. There are so many fascinating things going on, plus complex and interesting characters. We have a book of over 800 pages and little movement in the plot, which is frustrating. I do want to see where this story goes, and will probably pick up the next.

Thank you to Tor and Netgalley for an e-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own!