Let me preface this by saying V. E. Schwab is usually a hit for me! But idk... this duology just didn't give me what I wanted.

I had already been underwhelmed with Vicious, but this one was even worse. There were too many different characters, too many time jumps. The entire work felt unfocused. I wish the author had chosen to go with Syneys and June's relationship or Victor and Eli's or a character in particular... I feel like Schwab tried to focus on something but only did that for one part each. She spent soo much time developing Marcella as a character and yet her death was so uneventful, completely overshadowed by everything else going on.

Also, literally NONE of the plans anyone made worked. It felt quite unsatisfying.

There definitely was potential but it felt like a chaotic Schwab knock-off.