I was rather disappointed with this book. I adored the first one, but this one just seemed so... lacking I suppose. The characters felt kind of empty and I found myself really not caring. The story itself seemed to meander about randomly and often I found myself forgetting what the characters goal at the moment was supposed to be which made it difficult to focus and get caught up in it. ( )

*I WAS SENT A PHYSICAL ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW*

Firstly, I want to apologize for not posting this sooner. I thought I had already posted it, but it turns out that I completely forgot to hit "Publish". Secondly, Y'all don't understand how excited for this book I was. After reading and loving the first book, Mask of Shadows, I knew I had to get the next and last installment to the duology. Linsey Miller has never failed to amaze me, and this book was no different than the first when talking about this factor.

I was actually surprised to see more hate and anguish in this book. The first one seemed to have so much determination in it, and the plot seemed to be so airy. By that, I mean that all of the characters coordinated well and seemed to be able to get their jobs done efficiently. The magic system seemed easy to comprehend and was perfect in every way. That all kind of changed with this book.

This plot seemed much more serious and the determination was at an all-time high. The amount of revenge that I could pick out from the words and actions was crazy. Sal seemed to be determined in her job as Opal, and I didn't expect half of what she chose to do.

Though the characters were quite different in this book, there were a lot of things I did like about them that changed. Here's a small list just so I don't forget anything about specific characters:

SAL - Sal was stricter about her sexuality and gender mannerism. This, I actually found really nice. I'm still learning about new things when it comes to genders and sexualities, so y'all will have to forgive me if I mess up on saying something or forget anything important. One of the characters in this book actually pisses them off about it a lot, and I liked that they fought back about it. Sal was very confident in who they were, and I find that to be a very important detail that was addressed head-on.

ELISE - Elise's character, though not seen much, was VERY well developed. As most of you know from reading the first book, she was kidnapped by her father and brought back to her home country. In this book, she really helped move the plot--and all of the action that was put into this book--forward. She and Sal, I have to say, are the ones for each other.

RUBY - Though Ruby wasn't alive in this book, the character was still very much provided. Opal talked about Ruby a lot, and you never went a chapter without seeing a reference or thought about him. Ruby really drove Opal forward, and I'm happy for that. By the way, the ending will come as a bit of a shocker, but Ruby is for sure apart of it!

These are the characters that I felt had the best qualities and the most character development out of everyone.

To wrap this up, I want to have a short talk about the ending of this book. I know I promised, no spoilers! And I'm not going to give y'all any. But I will say that it came as a huge shock and heavy toll. Tissues may be needed, and multiple lips are going to have to be zipped from the amount of cursing that might come out of them. Linsey Miller definitely knows how to wrap up a story, and this ending definitely did that.

For this, I give the book 4/5 stars. I recommend that all of you preorder this book and read it soon. It was definitely something you won't be able to escape. After all, who can escape the might and honorable Opal? ( )

This book has far too many info-dump dialogue sequences, which are often clumsily handled, and suffers from trying to stuff a lot of backstory and villainry into something that is already plenty sketched out and villainous. I don't know why I keep trying to finish reading it, since I don't actually like reading it.

I enjoyed the violence of the first book in the set, partly the way it was used to explore reactions to trauma, and partly because sometimes it's a bit cathartic. Here, we have the violence again, and exploration of trauma and a rich setting, but as the world expands beyond the competition to become one of the Queen's top assassins, a lot of stuff is thrown into the story to justify the anger and violence. There is just so much, and I really felt that it could be toned down without losing anything.

What I really struggled with and found the most frustrating is that the villains are perfectly awful and murderous, but even though this series features a nonbinary/fluid protagonist, the villains also have to be raging bigots. Not just gender essentialist but misogynistic, too. It wasn't fun to keep reading about the misgendering or the hammering away at "the villains are just sooooo evil, they're racist and homophobic and misogynist and they probably kick puppies, too". I really, really wish the bigotry could have been maintained at the level of the previous book: most people mean well but nonbinary/gender fluidity isn't common in this universe and so they mess up, and the cruel people don't care, but the bigotry isn't the defining characteristic of the villains. Why can't some of the villains be gender inclusive and still villainous?

There are elements that kept me reading, even after I kept telling myself I should quit out of frustration, but I'm not entirely certain what they were, or if I can articulate them. I suppose I like the adventure aspect and I do like Sal and eir dark humor. But the book is just so unrelentingly ugly I can't possibly recommend it as a great book with a nonbinary pov because it wasn't fun to indulge in the revenge and intrigue plot or the spy and assassin things when constantly getting confronted by the ugliness.

(Sometimes it felt strongly as though that pov were distinctly not from an ownvoices writer, but I don't know that for sure. This sort of relentless negativity seems to be common in fiction about minorities, even while trying to show how that negativity is harmful. It's just not good.)

If you've read Mask of Shadows and want to know how Sal's story continues...make it up for yourself and skip this one. As much as I wanted it to be better, that big infodump/villain flaw ruin the whole thing. ( )