I couldn't get into this one, the start is really dramatic then slows down a lot and I don't care enough about what's set up to try and push through and see if things pick up later. No major problems with the book itself so far, I'm just not enjoying the experience of reading it so I'm stopping now. 

I love Fae and Greek mythology, so when I realized this was going to give me Tisiphone and the High Court all in one book I was intrigued. Ultimately I’m stopping because it feels like it’s trying to do too much, and by trying to remember the many characters and track the complex blend of two already massive paradigms/pantheons... it got to be overwhelming. The Furies are great, and the Furies plus the Faerie Courts would be really cool, but the Furies, the Greco-Roman creation myth, complex systems for inheritance, political machinations, a serial murderer (or murderers), and the marginalization of the faeries (which are different from the Fae), and the persecution of the Ironborn (which could variously be considered Fae, Faerie, or human?)... it’s a lot. It would be a lot for even a trilogy to establish gradually, it begs for the room to have major details conveyed simply at first and then expanded, distorted, and recontextualized over the course of two books minimum. You can do really cool narrative things with “knowing” something then finding out your information was wrong and it changes how you think about what came before. Here things were established, rebutted, and adjusted so quickly I’m not even sure if they were supposed to be changes at all. I made it just over a third of the way through and I feel overwhelmed by the world and underwhelmed by the plot.

My one regret by not finishing this is I won’t know how things resolve for Tisiphone, but there’s too much extraneous stuff around her very interesting backstory for me to get fully into this one thing I like.

Getting the point of view for both the protagonist and antagonist was cool at first, but now it feels like I’m waiting for the protagonist to figure out a mystery where the antagonist handed me the answer a hundred pages ago. It’s a particular kind of tension which I just don’t like, and which makes me too anxious to keep reading. I think what happened is that while both HOLD ME CLOSER, NECROMANCER and NECROMANCING THE STONE are horror, the first felt enough like a creature-feature for me to like it, while this one is designed to convey the slow creeping dread of a great horror movie where the audience put it together already and they watch, helplessly, as the protagonist(s) fumble because they just don’t know what’s causing everything. I think it does it well, it’s just doing very well a thing I can’t stand, so I’m stopping.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 
This collection is, unfortunately, above my personal threshold for horror (I'm more of a creature-feature person) and I had to stop reading. I loved the story "Comorbidity" and the use of the profiles as a framing device was a nice touch. 

I just couldn’t get into it and didn’t like the main character.

I started reading this a week after reading the first book, WICKED SAINTS, and I don't know what's happening or why I should care. I mention the timeframe to make it clear that my confusion is not a result of waiting a long time between reading the first book and picking up the sequel. I'm perfectly fine being confused by a book, there are some I've praised for being fascinating while also spending a long time being largely incomprehensible. But I just can't get into the central motivation of "girl must save demon nightmare boy from something (???) by doing something (???)". I can handle a book being boring for a little while, and I'm fine with confusion, but this combination of unclear stakes, revelations without enough tension, general lack of context, and a plot I just can't get into means I'm going ahead and stopping now. 

I plan to try again with this one, I just wasn’t in the right headspace to read it, then my library checkout expired.

DNF page 111 (27% in).
At first I like the lighthearted tone, but then what was initially sweet started feeling cloying: intense without any heft to it, and no relief. Most moments which seemed like they should have emotional weight and importance just didn’t land for me. Scenes which could have been intense were diffused with humor or antics almost instantly. I like humorous tones sometimes, but when nothing is taken seriously the jokes stop feeling funny. I disliked every scene with the MC’s dad (the few that there were). The MC is oblivious about pretty much everything, and it made me want to yell at the book to get, just, anything about what was going on. I stopped trusting that it would handle anything well, and the way the dad controls the MC's medication didn't feel good.

I’m uncomfortable with the sheer number of descriptions of things that somehow involve people’s bodies in a sexual manner even when nothing sexual is even happening. It felt like everything was couched in terms of a male/female binary. The thing that made me stop was one character’s casual description of circumcision and female genital mutilation as equivalent and positive things to do to children’s bodies. It’s possible that the overall stance of the book doesn’t condone this (authors are not their characters, after all), but I’m too distressed to read more and find out.

Did not finish, 14% in. Maybe I’ll try this again someday, but the mood whiplash from the very early, very graphic death which kicks off the plot was too much for me. The plot shocked me and then meandered for a while, I’m sure it has a destination but I’m not ready right now for the journey.