It was good but frustrating that so much of the dynamic between the two main characters was based off of lack of communication

I really wanted to love this but I didn't like it as much as Queen's Shadow, and I think it's largely because of the amount of jumping around that happened, both with perspectives and the storyline/timeline. I wanted more insight into Padmé's, and Sabé's thoughts and feelings and DRIVE and I felt like I didn't get that any more than in Queen's Shadow.

I want moreeeeeeeeee. Wow!!!!

edit, 6/22: I as a white reader reading a book by a white author did not notice the ways in which her whiteness affected the book until reading responses by readers of color. I really enjoyed reading the book, but I can definitely see the ways that the book paints a racist picture of a Black man

and we later find out, the Black HEIR TO THE ENTIRE EMPIRE

dedicates everything including his life and betrays those connected to his old empire to save the white (?) heir to the empire that colonized him. So. I will follow what the author does to elevate Black authors and see how this affects the later two books, which I know there she has a contract to write.

wowwww. This book hurt, was sad and hopeless and tired and exhausted and I felt all of it, I wasn't sure how it could possibly turn out alright. I'm surprised I didn't cry, and I feel like I would have if I had been in a different headspace - I certainly felt devastated at multiple points. At one point, I worried August had entirely hallucinated Jack's existence even though that was so unlikely. I wanted a little more from the end, a little more about the life they created after, but I understand ending it where it ended. This review doesn't make any sense because this book is about feelings more than anything. I felt it. That's all. Look up trigger warnings before reading this one.

Also, the note at the end was almost better than the book itself, just because of the resonance it has once you read the book. It hit home.

Wish I had this book in high school. Also. I have a lot of prom feelings and literally none of them are positive so I delayed reading this book but I'm glad I read it.

we love magical books about trauma... honestly that part did feel pretty unresolved/not as delved into as it could have been but still

4.5 stars
This was cute and intriguing and had some twists I wasn't expecting that I realized I should have seen coming the whole time. I wasn't feeling the romance for the first half of the book, but also hadn't read the first book in a few months and so went in not feeling the investment I may have felt if I had gone straight from the previous book to this. The conversation they had with Crier wanting to learn Ayla like a book sold me, though, and I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories. I loved having characters who just used they/them pronouns and that being non-addressed, even as sometimes it's nice to learn in detail about the way a society sees gender this time it was just cool to have it be a thing, with the human/automae issue the stigmatized existance/love rather than queerness or being nonbinary.