It’s been way too long since I last fell so deeply in love with a book. I adore stories about Faerie courts, and the juxtaposition with the human world (especially from the perspective of the sisters’ sort of dual citizenship) is delightfully discomfiting. The exploration of family bonds and individual definitions was also really striking — twin sister, (half) sister, adoptive father, adoptive (step?)mother, baby brother — and fascinated me throughout the book. Disagreements between the characters expanded the themes and aligned with their worldviews, rather than just creating petty conflict; each and every player on the board had clear value in the game. Also, shoutout to the matter-of-fact treatment of Vivi’s bisexuality.

Of all the major plot twists, I only foresaw the most obvious one (the endgame romance), but they all made sense and had proper buildup rather than the abrupt, shock-over-logical-progression twists other books pull just to surprise the reader. The ending note is situationally similar to some other books (Red Queen and A Court of come to mind), but I’m more excited to read this sequel than I have been in a good while.

ADDENDUM (2019): Just because the endgame romance(s) is predictable doesn't mean I condone it; rereading it with that canonical knowledge has influenced how I see certain scenes, but it's definitely not a healthy relationship as it currently stands.