Boy oh boy.

My one and only regret going into this was that I didn't marathon the Grisha Trilogy or the Six of Crows duology before diving into this novel. The characters and events referenced did come back to me vaguely while I kept reading, but I do think some essence of the story was lost on me because of my lack of recollection.

That being said, this read just like all Bardugo's previous novels: an absolute page turner. I have a love hate relationship with novels that use multiple POV's. On one hand YAY MORE CHARACTER INSIGHT. One the other hand, boo skipping from one plot point to the next. I get so invested in one characters story and then so let down when it doesn't continue in the next chapter. It would either entice me to speed through the next chapter in hopes of getting back to my fav, or convincing myself to put the book down and take a break. This is definitely a personal preference, and no flaw in the writing style or the author's ability to seamlessly interweave a story through multiple lands and multiple characters.

I would also say that while being a page turner, this book wasn't as incredibly exciting as some of her books have been in the past. It was nice to see what each of the characters were up to post the void, post the heists, etc. But I didn't feel as much excitement in this novel as I have in the past. The only exception to that being the last hundred pages. It DEFINITELY left me wanting to know what will happen in the second (and final?!) book in this series. So now...we wait. -_-

[[i guess in the meantime i can reread the other series' and marathon everything as a cohesive unit...]]