It's finally here! And it's hollowed me out like a small, decorative pumpkin!

God, I was scared picking up this book, because I didn't know if I was going to love it because it was this series or love it for the book it was, and I didn't know if the pain (because of course there was going to be pain) was going to overcome the rest of it. But dear Lord this book is good.

This book is also really, really funny, which is a gigantic surprise. These characters somehow all got 70% funnier the second they figured out how to use their words to actually communicate. (And yay, communication is a thing in this book!)
And yet, Rainbow flexes fully here and gives up emotional wallops, derringdo, and a comedy hour in between, and none of it feels anything but organic or earned, and all of it works!
While I was reading I wrote down "How the hell did this book ruin me emotionally for 100 pages and then take me to the circus????" and I genuine cannot say it better than that.

There's so much romance in here, and it's all exceedingly cute. Every book in this series feels a bit like a fanfic of each other, but that's not a bad thing for this series, and it definitely remains true for this book. It's romantic and fun and full of "fix-it" in ways that feel so satisfying.
I love Shepard's piece in this so much, I love the new relationships, I love getting to see our golden relationship finally work itself out hiccups and all.

There are so many great new plot points in here, the only thing that let me down even a little is that things didn't feel like they got full closure. Everything from Wayward Son except Shepard pretty much falls to the wayside, and definitely doesn't get shared with the World of Mages, which I was kind of waiting for. And the major plot point of this book feels like it didn't get much room to breathe, in between all of the rest of it. But, personally, I would have been find with this book being 800 pages and I would probably read The World of Mage's phonebook, so, really, when is it actually enough? (Never! Rainbow, keep writing!)

God, this book was an emotionally rollercoaster and I want to ride it again immediately.

Pre-review comments below
OH MY GOD THE TITLE IS BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY OH MY GOD SIMON HAS A SWORD OH MY GOD BOOK THREE IS HAPPENING

Update: RELEASE DATE AHH. 2021, please be good to me and do not push this back, I swear to God

Update 2: RED ALERT I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S A WAND OR THE SWORD BUT IT SPELLS OUT M A G I C K