This was a lark! So fun. 

Things I enjoyed:
• Cinnamon’s loving and snarky family dynamics (can’t believe one of her brothers is named Cumin but fine)
• Cinnamon’s POV was HILARIOUS. So funny, so Black, I loved it, 
• The comparison of the demon control to slavery 
• this was unexpectedly all caps SPICY which I didn’t foresee so that was a pleasant surprise. 
• The quest and Fallon’s devotion 

Things I didn’t love (this list is very brief):
• Because this is a short book, some things were simply not described in detail. By which I mean the destruction of the first phylactery took maybe….2 pages? Cinnamon just went in and did it, boom no problem. Also the transitions between scenes were abrupt so if I didn’t pay 100% attention, 1 minute would go by and suddenly everyone is in an entirely new situation (usually a battle) in a different location with new characters. 
• When Fallon first explained the cause and later when Cinnamon did, somehow everyone just…..immediately believed them? Their society had believed something for decades, maybe centuries, and yet as soon as one person (a stranger, no less!) said “actually no,” everyone immediately believed them? And not only believed, but actively joined Fallon and Cinnamon’s crusade. 

I had a fantastic time reading this (tore through it in 2-3 days) and have already put the next book in the series on hold. 

I started listening to this on a run and so listened to about an hour, the whole time wondering “Does this author have a disability or is this her imaging what someone with a congenital birth defect would feel?” Since I couldn’t Google it I kept listening for the full hour of my run but became more and more convinced this is not an Own Voices story. After some brief googling I couldn’t find anything about Marie’s experience but also this was written in 2013 (as I learned while googling) and I don’t think Own Voices was a term at that time so I can’t be sure but the vibes were off. I read a lot of reviews that also mentioned that HIV isn’t AIDS and a gay man in 2013 wouldn’t use these interchangeably.  So all that to say, that’s why I DNFed. 

This is well written and interesting, I just didn’t feel like listening to in-depth racism at this time. I will be googling to find out how it ends bc I’m curious. 

Stunning 

This book has solidified that a trope I do not enjoy is: wealthy, powerful, cynical man has no compassion and treats people (including the woman he is interested in) terribly until she worms her way into his heart with her radiant goodness and beauty.