I had pretty high hopes for this book simply because I'm a big Bardugo fan. I thought she did a superb job transitioning from YA to adult fantasy with the Alex Stern series so I wasn't too worried about the adult nature of this novel. However, I was pretty disappointed. 

There's quite a few POV's we follow, and I had a hard time keeping track of who we were switching to with each chapter. In most cases, it took me a few sentances and some re-reading to get my bearings. Outside of that, I found most of the POVs to pretty boring. Why did we have to see what Valentina was thinking throughout this whole book? Actually, why did she have to be a main character at all? Also, the romance was not doing it for me. I get why it was there...but it felt rushed and in most cases it felt unnecessary.

The plot is where this book shines for me. There were a few scenes where I would get utterly sucked in and I had a hard time putting it down. And the ending! I think the ending was worth it. It felt justified, it felt in-sync with everything the characters went through, and it felt right. Nothing about the ending felt rushed. My only qualm is that the ending hinges on the romance, which as I said just didn't feel authentic. 

I'm glad I picked this book up because I will read everything Bardugo writes, but this one just did not land like I had hoped.