Pretty much entirely meh.

This book contains possibly the greatest love letter of all time. But it is deeply unsatisfying, in the way of Snicket books.

I adored the facsimiles that came with the book, and it was fascinating to read about the world Shakespeare lived in and the effect he's had on different societies.

I knocked off a star because (I know, I know, they wrote it, but still) the Royal Shakespeare Company provided a lot of the pictures so it wasn't super diverse. And on page 46 there was a huge editing mistake - the box and photo are of John Dryden, but the text was actually the John Hall text from page 44. Sigh.

Wickedly fun, vividly sensual, and slyly relatable.

2.12.20 Re-read on audio. Not as good as the printed book.

It feels like the characters have finally grown up -- and so has Cabeswater. Stiefvater miraculously manages to cram an alarming amount of story into a volume of a quartet that is known for its mild pacing and precise language more than its action. This series only gets better as it goes along: the themes of discovery, friendship, family, and love remain even as the magic is increased precipitously and the danger heightens with it.

Great premise, but all of the characters were such terrible people that I didn't care about any of them, so the book lacked all of its promised tension.

Spoiler

Go nearly killed the orcamancer and got herself shot by her own child in the process and I literally felt nothing . . . I wanted to care, because I loved the idea of using nanites to bond to animals and the world felt so possible in our current climate, but all the big ideas just felt half-finished.

Charming, atmospheric, shyly romantic.

Weird but I like it.