Max Gladstone always has interesting ideas, but this simply could not hold my attention for long periods of time. It felt like my brain kept sliding away from the book every time I sat down to read this. I honestly don't even feel like I read nearly 200 pages of this, because it never felt like anything was happening despite so much happening with the plot. 

I'm always going to check out whatever Max Gladstone releases because he's got a weird, beautiful, creative mind, but this didn't do it for me. 

  DNF @ 19%. Wasn’t expecting all that on page murder and rape as the traumatic backstory for the main character. It’s implied in the summary but this way is too much for me. 

  DNF @ 25%. The writing is pretty good and I enjoyed the atmosphere being set up, but this seems to be going in a direction where the main question becomes "is the MC just a victim of her mental health issues and imagining shit?" and I'm just not here for that kind of story right now. I'm so, so tired of unreliable narrators in thrillers. 

  DNF @ 20% on audio. I'm unfortunately so bored by this so far, I'll try picking it up in the future to see if anything will have changed. 

i'm done. i can't read these pretentious kids for a whole BOOK.

Excellent writing, excellent character work. But there are some books I just cannot make myself read despite how good they are, and this is one of them. 

DNF @ 19% of the audiobook.

I knew it was over when I was almost to work and just started laughing and asking "what the fuck?" out loud in my car as the narrative kept going. It's trying so hard to be serious and a thriller but it's hitting all the same cliched beats that every other hijacking thriller hits, just more boring. Even this early into the story, there was a LOT of suspension of disbelief I couldn't give. Facetiming constantly with the hijacker on the plane??? With the shitty plane wifi? No sir. 

Thanks for our short time together, Steven Weber. You're a pretty good narrator, but not even you could save this. 

DNF @ 48%. 

The audiobook truly shines a harsh light on how repetitive and boring this second installment of this series is, and how much this book was streeeeetched to make this a trilogy instead of a duology. The same basic scenes are repeated over and over again, leaving the readers and Stevie with no real forward momentum once she gets back to the academy. None of the side characters are written in any depth, not even Stevie's BFFs. The only saving grace here was the chapters written in the past during the original Ellingham mystery, but it's not enough to keep me going.

It's too early in the year to suffer through this. Onward to another audiobook!

DNF @ 30%. This hit some character and plot beats that I personally cannot stand, so I'm putting it down. A true application of my It's Not You, It's Me shelf.