Well this series came around for me by the end, it has a solid conclusion.
I did finally realize what the writing style feels like: it reminds me of novelization of TV shows or movies, where you're like this is a lot of telling, when it should be showing.
One of the few things I've ever read that I think would be better as a series or a movie, because the author spends so much time explaining the obvious or telling us what is happening instead of just letting it unfold through visuals or dialogue.
Also, just for me personally it was interesting to encounter some Marcion theology in there

Great reflection on personal grief

I was going to dock this book one star bc of a couple of things that I had noticed and took issue with and then lo and behold she addressed those exact things in her afterword so I can confidently give it the full five stars.
This book is beautifully written and a brave exploration of grieving, and also has interesting facts and history. Would be a great resource for anyone a couple of years into grief, who wants to feel seen and understood.

Such an interesting person but presented so dully by this author. I'd love to read something about Virginia Hall written by someone like Candice Millard.
I think the author could've dispensed with trying to use the code names, that just added unnecessary confusion.
I hope someone else will write a more interesting book or that more things will be de classified so we can get more of Virginia Hall's story.

Cool setting, interesting characters, but then…wtf happened at the end of this book?

Spoiler

We’re humming along and then…cannibalism. Then gods possessing people. A truly exhaustingly long battle scene where nobody is control of their power and also all these powerful gods wait their turn to fight and have almighty power but somehow require humans vessels?
I’m only kind of curious what happens next and will definitely wait for reviews before I delve into the second one when if comes out.

The historical part was interesting but as it gets into modern time it becomes less clear and less interesting

So so good!!! I love Hava and the foxes!

I love Leigh Bardugo and say 99% of this is the usual enjoyable style and interesting characters and cool magic, and all the typical great stuff she writes so well, but that other 1% is the reason it's a 4 not a 5. I got a little lost in the sheer amount of magic/demon/other creatures/other spells and items that got thrown at us and I didn't have a good sense of time frame either. But otherwise I enjoyed getting more of Alex's story and seeing her take charge and her and Dawes being a cool magical team. I hope there'll be a next one because then this one can be that typical "middle of a series" book that are always a little weaker, generally. But I'll def reread it

I walked out of a bookstore with this at 3pm and it's 10:30pm and I have devoured it, read the whole thing. So.damn.good. I don't have any personal connection to her experience but her use of language to describe confusion and love and relationships and pain and life, all of it resonate. Also there is a part in a bank where it, for me, was like reading a thriller, I was so anxious for her, even though it's a memoir, and I knew she had come through what she was writing about. Her writing just happens to be that evocative is all!

I’m not rating, because I was so confused and then also bored with the plot, the writing, the character. I went ahead and skipped to the end to find out what was going on. It was not satisfying to me, and I would have rated it very low, but out of fairness, since I only read the first 23 chapters before skipping to the end, I won’t.