This started off strong, but it lost a whooooole bunch of steam as it went. The story never really felt like it was driving forward, just sort of meandering onward.

Toby is likeable enough, but she's sort of ineffectual. She spends a large portion of the book constantly being battered about and recovering from various near-fatal injuries and in the grand scheme of the plot and what she's attempting to do, very rarely does she ever actually accomplish anything herself. Which is not to say that she has to be an invulnerable superwoman, and having help is fine. But Toby (and thus the narrative since it's first person) constantly harps on how relatively weak she is as compared to all of the extremely powerful beings around her and that's consistently held up by the text, which leaves one wondering why exactly everyone wants her to do everything in the first place. Vague reasons involving fairy law and politics, also loyalties, etc. are bandied about and obviously if the very powerful people took care of their own shit and/or got other very powerful people to do so you wouldn't have much of a story, but as with all such things it becomes a little frustrating after a while.

I also found the book very easily telegraphed, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but since it revolved around a mystery that sort of took away any suspense. Plus, my being able to figure out the characters' entire motivation and plot arc generally upon first introduction meant that Toby often being inexplicably oblivious about things became grating. There are insignificant things that mostly just make me do things like go "...He obviously doesn't hate you?!" at various intervals throughout the entire book. Then there are much more important things like why exactly she seems to be aware that one dude is a total fucking creeper and predator/user&abuser and is wary of it, yet also simultaneously seems to be completely flabbergasted by the idea of him being a terrible person.

At any rate.

2.5/5