Well ... this sure did happen. 

I came into this with pretty like, reasonable expectations I think. I liked the characters and worldbuilding of the first book, but I wasn't in love with it all and wasn't expecting or wanting any particular outcomes or explorations of specific things. And yet, this was hugely disappointing. 

Everything felt both rushed and mind-numbingly drawn out, and none of the angsty heartfelt interactions between characters happened. Like, at all?? Like everyone talked to each other, and sometimes said things that felt emotional but there was no development or build up so it all fell spectacularly flat. During some of the scenes I was also very confused about what was happening, or who was talking because people would be referred to by multiple different names/titles during the same conversation and I simply cannot deal with all of that on top of everything else.

If I hadn't bought this full price (and also recommended this duology to multiple people) I think I would have DNFd it but like ... it was fine.

Also why did we get such interesting fleeting glimpses into Malehk and all of his trauma and stuff but he was barely fucking in this?? He was just like, sometimes there and sometimes even spoke like ffs he's so interesting I would have loved like a whole goddamn book about his time in the Night Court and all of that, or even just more detail about it ahhh!