I expected a straightforward continuation of what started in Children of Time and I would've been content with just that. But this time, the story took on a darker tone with even some elements of horror. There's still some levity but mostly at the beginning and the end, which fits those parts well.

If there's anything I can criticize it's the pacing; the book starts at breakneck speeds but the middle part is plodding. The finale, while extremely satisfying, compresses a lot of plot onto just a few pages that could easily have been their own chapters when filling in all the details. I would have gladly swapped two of the slow chapters for two more chapters of finale.

But I'm guessing a lot of these details are revealed in the third part of the series, so I'm looking forward to that.