As slow and painful the first book was to read, I truly didn't expect to prefer, let alone like the sequel. The worldbuilding was done in the first novel, so now we're focusing on character dynamics and what said characters are up to. Which is no good, most of the time.
I've come to realize, part of why it's so tiring to read this series is because we spend all of our time in Jude's head: full of anxiety, anger, fear, suspicion. It becomes a chore to see only her thoughts and noone else's, it'd be good to see events from other's perspectives. Cardan, for example, was not seen nearly enough, even though he's one of the most important and most interesting characters.
The ending to this book actually managed to surprise me a bit, I do wonder how things will play out in the last volume, we'll see.