I see that many readers were impressed with this follow-up to Strange the Dreamer. Perhaps I was feeling particularly grumpy when I read it, but I found it disappointing. Although there are sparks of invention such as Laini Taylor has accustomed us to, there are also pages of what I think of as the Silver Surfer syndrome, in which the author, or one of her characters, agonize pointlessly over their place in the universe, their moral failings, and whether boy really loves girl. This does not add moral depth and is simply tedious. The two-book novel would have quite adequately filled one volume, and the doings of this second part could have been rounded up in an extra chapter to the first