This book wrecked me. There is a scene below the spoiler tag that

Spoiler

the Kodiak and Ambrose who grow old together reach the end of their lives and Kodiak dies and Ambrose just says he is going to follow him

made me let out the most inhuman wail. This is not an exaggeration. I almost choked on my own inhale. I had to put the book down and then come back and re-read the page.

This is what scifi should be. Beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, hopeful.

I must have read this book at least three times between the ages of 14 - 16, and when the library weeded it, I picked it up at their book sale.

And now, I'm really not sure why. It's not badly written, just boring. Ellie plods about her first year at art school, only making default friends (the only two kids in her class, and the first guy she kisses at a party) and doing absolutely nothing with her time other than drawing. Maybe I thought she was cool? She isn't. Maybe I was intrigued by the idea of how easy it was to meet someone and sleep with them? That part is true, and therefore no longer interesting.

I think it's one of those books you really have to read at the right age or you won't ever sink into it.

I laughed, but mostly I cried. It's hard to describe the feeling you get when listening to a story like this about a queer black man examining what it means to be both those things in America today, while driving past the political sign of someone running for school superintendent whose entire poster is just his last name and "stop critical race theory."

What a fucked up time to be alive.

I genuinely regret even starting this trilogy.

Ugh.

I used to watch Passions in elementary school, so I thoroughly enjoyed this soap opera themed romp.

Clariel turns into a villain, and Nix is not good at writing villains with depth, so she is extremely unlikable and this whole thing is a bore.

A bit disappointing that a novella all about Nicholas was solved by Lirael, but I liked his ingenuity.

I don't think this book needed to exist, especially so long after the original trilogy was published. The book about Clariel/Chlor was dull, and so was this. It lacked sparkle.