I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

This was such a fun, quick read! I always love standalone comics to read in between longer novels, and this fits that role perfectly. It was also surprisingly witty, and I really loved some of the wordplay and banter.

I think my favorite part of this comic has to be the art style, and I loved how well it fit the characters and story. I especially loved how Serine was drawn, and how you could visually see the difference in manner/attitude when she switched between her various roles. It really brought the writing to life! There was also a nice amount of fluidity and movement to the art, which was especially important for certain scenes and characters. The color throughout the story was also such a pleasant addition, and often mimicked the tone of the current scene very well, and brought different moods to various moments. It was honestly just wonderfully done!

The story itself was also extremely fun while still having some depth to it, and I loved how clever certain moments and characters were. While the twists aren't super unpredictable, it was still done in such a way where you picked up small pieces along the way, and knowing the twist didn't actually ruin the reveal at all for me. There was also a good balance of frustration/Serine being treated horribly by royals and satisfaction at seeing those same royals suffer, without saving all the 'revenge' for the final scene. It gave some relief throughout the story, being able to laugh at the misfortune of some of the crueler characters!

Overall, I really enjoyed this, and I can see myself picking up more by the artist/writers!

I’ve been meaning to read this book for a while (years, actually), but just never really got around to it! I don’t necessarily have a lot of experience with the original tale this story is based on (except for the Barbie movie, haha!), but the synopsis still sounded right up my alley. When my library hold on the audiobook finally came in last week, I knew it was at long last to read this one!

Right off the bat, this book was extremely atmospheric, and this was something that remained true throughout the whole story. I could taste the salt of the sea and feel the ghosts lurking in the dark halls of Highmoor. It was definitely this book's biggest strength and a large reason why this book was still three stars for me, despite having some issues with other aspects of the book. It’s also what has me still interested in other books by this author, as I can see myself falling into this sort of writing and description again!

One weak point of the writing, for me, was the repetitiveness of the description at points. This was actually pointed out by one of my friends in their review, and it rang true for me. An important aspect of storytelling, at least in many scenarios, is that you need to ‘show and not tell.’ Simply put, you can’t just explicitly tell everything to a reader, especially when it comes to characters (from personality, emotion, etc., etc.) This book has plenty of showing, and it’s done really well, up until it’s immediately followed by a line that explicitly explains what was meant to be shown. While I understand it might be there for clarity, it was often for fairly mundane descriptions, like showing a character’s reaction or feelings about something. It made otherwise good descriptive writing feel clunky and overbearing, as it was trying to point out something that was already obviously clear to me. Description typically works better when there’s some trust in the reader understanding the point you’re trying to make, even if it’s not entirely spelled out.

One last thing that really stuck out to me, positively, was how well the narrator + writing portrayed some of the confusion and unsurety of later scenes. I can’t go into this in too much detail, due to spoilers, but I really felt like I was in Annaleigh’s head for most of those final scenes. It was extremely disorienting, but it meant I was able to clearly feel how the world was shifting around Annaleigh, which added a lot of needed tension to the final moments of the book.

Unfortunately, there was more that didn’t work for me than that did, even if the atmosphere of the story still made it an overall enjoyable read. First, I felt like the characters needed more distinguishing features overall. While I know that in a retelling such as this one, you need to have at least twelve sisters (on top of the standard array of supporting characters), it didn’t feel like there were actually twelve sisters. There were definitely twelve different names, but so many of their personalities and roles in the stories were easily interchangeable, beyond an obvious few. This was especially true for the sisters that were ‘grouped up’, in a way, like the triplets, the younger set of sisters, and the dead sisters. It took me a long while to even learn all their names, but then we never really got any development or description for them beyond very basic details, allowing me to point out which was the one that picked the pink dress for the ball or which is the one that died in a bathtub. It also made the grief feel less present because it never felt like the sisters, alive or dead, were anything actually real, so the loss of them didn’t feel like the loss of anything much. I also found the final twist predictable, and while I don’t actually mind that as long as it’s still done well overall, it did feel like the narrative was trying too hard not to look too closely at certain characters, to try to make it less obvious that way. It made some parts of the plot and Annaleigh’s actions feel weird, especially later on when she starts questioning everything and everyone. This was also generally true for many characters, though, where it felt like their reactions to events were more about plot convenience and keeping the story progressing instead of it feeling like how a character would actually feel or react in that situation. Lastly, the ending also felt silly to me, or at least one specific aspect of it. It’s just not something I ever appreciate in stories, at least not done so quickly, and it ruined any of the possible weight the ending may have carried for me.

Overall, while this book didn’t entirely work for me, I did enjoy some aspects quite a bit, especially the atmosphere/setting of the story. I do think I’ll still give future books by Craig a shot, just to experience that level of immersion again!

This was one of those books that the more hyped up it got, the less I wanted to read it, oddly. It was just something I kept pushing further and further back on my tbr as I saw it blow it up, even if I can’t exactly pinpoint why exactly it put me off. I think it just seemed impossible for a book to live up to hype so high, and I wanted to let that die down a bit before I finally gave it a shot. And in the end, I’m actually glad I did! While I still enjoyed it overall and felt some scenes very strongly, it also just didn’t quite live up to the grand heights that I’d come to expect. Since I’d waited, I didn’t actually feel disappointed or let down in any way, which I might have otherwise if I’d read this much closer to release.

I think the main detractor for me was how long it took me to really get into the story and start feeling connected to it. In stories of such strong emotion, especially when that emotion comes from feeling with and for a character, it’s extremely important for me to have that connection quickly, so maximum emotional damage can be done to me. It just took me a really long time for me to feel like I was there, and that meant that really only the ending ended up hitting the hardest for me. However, it was an extremely strong final chapter, and ended bringing the rating back up a star for me! I really liked how everything was tied up, and seeing the tentatively hopeful culmination of 300 pages of grief.

While I did enjoy this quite a bit overall, there were a few detractors (that probably were part of the reason it took so long for me to feel connected to Julie/the story). One of the main things might have been the petty high school drama that was a background force in many scenes. It felt like it often took away a lot from the bigger picture of the story, and that there wasn’t room in the book for these petty squabbles, not when this big ball of grief was taking up so much space. It made the story feel a bit more cliché for me, even though I get that Julie is in high school and high schoolers can be so cruel. It just didn’t work for me, though I feel like it might’ve worked better if more attention was paid to it, since most of it just kinda disappears later on. I also felt like this with a lot of the side characters. So many of them were strong and had so much potential, but it felt like there just wasn’t space for them in the book. Julie was just going through so much, and there was such a big story there to tell, that there wasn’t much room left for all the side characters and making them feel more real and present. I also just didn’t like certain things done with one character, Tristan, which seemed like something might happen there that I was stressed about, only for nothing to ever come from it again?

In general, though, I really liked the look into grief that this story gave, especially how it focused on both learning to bring something with you even after they’re gone, but also showing how different people grieve differently (and how quickly people begin to shame people they think are grieving incorrectly). It just felt multi-layered in quite a few areas. I also liked how everything was shown to us, without forcing us to have a certain opinion on anything. We were able to see how Julie grieved, and how it was different from others, while also seeing how it hurt other people (genuinely, not just the people who tried to find someone to blame and used this to blame Julie). Even so, it didn’t feel like we were forced to pick sides. It felt like it was ok for both things to be true: Julie grieved differently and that’s ok, but it’s also true that that can sometimes hurt the people closest to you. The only thing that sometimes felt weird was how some characters reacted to Julie, especially in the beginning and middle of the book. Some adults gave Julie very little space to grieve, and some kids felt especially cruel, even for high schoolers. It was just a bit jarring sometimes, like when Julie’s teacher said it wasn’t fair to give her a further extension if he didn’t also give it to the rest of the class (like??? Not everyone in the class just lost their boyfriend of three years?). Overall, though, I did really like how grief was portrayed and explored in this book.

While this book isn’t necessarily the new favorite that I hoped it might be, I do still think it ended up worth the read. It’s a different portrayal of grief than we sometimes otherwise see in media, especially since it centers someone so young (who also lost someone so young). It’s overall just a good story of grief and loss, and I can see this being a good book for many!

4.5, rounded up! It's definitely not a heist novel in the usual sense, but I loved what it actually was instead (character exploration + discussions about colonization, immigration, family, and culture)