This book is less than the sum of its parts. Individual scenes are interesting. The prose is good, and there are plenty of well-written and thought-provoking lines. But all together it somehow becomes an emotionless, boring slog. I had no interest for the latter half of the book and skimmed the last ten chapters just to see where it all ended up. I think I just expected more to happen. I came into it thinking we would move on from Valentina and Marius, so Luzia would be able to move farther, and just do much more, but no. That's just not what happened.

I liked Luzia at first. She's a headstrong female protagonist. But then she just became boring? Uninteresting? And I didn't care for Santángel at all. Like I felt nothing towards him and most of the time he was just kind of irritating and/or uncomfortable. So I didn't buy the romance at all. I felt like they had no chemistry. That's kind of a big seller of the book and I felt nothing. It was weird. I usually like these kinds of dark mysterious love interests. But I was so emotionally detached from him and from the romance.