big, horrifically long sigh. the first few chapters were good. the last few chapters were good. (out of 51, may i add.) the last page made me angry. most of this book made me angry.
it lost all of the goodness from the first book. pacat has some weird obsession with possessor and possesse, captive, someone wanting someone purely under their control and that person just going along with it. and i hate that.

i'm so angry they spoilt such pureness from james and will's relationship with it. it could've been so sweet. will, having to deal with knowing he is a reborn, and james being there to comfort him. truly. pure love. not fake love, fake lust, weird sex through magic (amazing how pacat managed to wrangle their way round making literal children have sex by making it "feeling for magic"). i am so angry at the direction this book went.
a lot of it was good. but unfinished. violet's story was just an afterthought. hardly there. why split the found family up like that if you weren't going to make violet's story something to actually develop on, rather than just leave annoyingly unanswered questions to fill more word count ?
and my god, i could not care less about elizabeth or visander. visander was just a carbon copy of cyprian, and i did not need a pov from a 12 year old which made the writing lack. 

there were good things about this book. the world building, the urgency, the progression of will's character arc. but it was so achingly slow, so much of it was not needed and made the book lag. so much so, that i think if it had been shorter, then the bad parts wouldn't have overshadowed the good so prominently.
i'm not sure if i'll read the next book when it's released. i do not want to read more of james being will's captive.