The writing flows nicely and makes this book really easy to read, but I feel underwhelmed by the story itself. There are plenty of elements that intrigued me initially: her father is a traitor to the Luminaries, there's a new nightmare in the forest but almost nobody believes Winnie that it exists, and there's something going on with Jay. Unfortunately, and this is a mild spoiler,

everything remains unresolved by the end,

which leaves us with a pretty thin story, and characters that I felt mostly ambivalent about. 

One other thing I want to mention is that Winnie is apparently another character (the other one I know of being Violet from Fourth Wing) that likes to recite entire sections of an encyclopedia when she's nervous. I think there were many other ways to add the world-building—in fact, the book has several pages with monster illustrations that repeat the exact same facts. I don't know why the author chose to go this route, but it was unimpressive to say the least. 

That said, I had a good enough time that I will pick up the sequel. I was also happy to see Muslim characters that wear hijabs. (Also that the colours and designs of the hijabs were described! A tiny detail, but one I really appreciated.)