Midnight Beauties was a great conclusion to the Grim Lovelies Series. I believe that I enjoyed this novel much better than the original. It began where the previous novel left off, with Anouk and her desire to become a witch to save her fellow beasties. She goes on an extraordinary journey and what happens on that journey is not what you would expect. The end of this book rattled me; it was all so surprising. However, the last two chapters felt very rushed and unexpected, which is why I didn’t give the book 5 stars.

I'm not sure how I really feel about this. I liked a lot of the first half of it but it kind of lost me by the second, just felt anticlimactic somehow. I just don't care about a lot of the characters and was disappointed by how many of their stories ended up, it didn't feel like there was much to bond with or much of an arc with the characters to feel satisfying in the end especially with characters like Luke or Cricket and especially Beau. Just didn't really get a good feel but not enough of a bad feel to rate it any less. It's just kind of fun, I imagine it as more of a middle grade adventure if you take out the kissing bits, I think it would have worked a lot better aged down.

I absolutely loved this book up until the very end. I felt the ‘twist’ was out of left field and ultimately unnecessary.

I received a free copy of the ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There were parts of this book I totally loved and other parts I found sorta boring. I loved the action... it felt like a lot of stuff crammed into the 3 or 4 days of the story line. I appreciated that not every situation turned out as i was expecting. I definitely liked this one better than book one. There's a weird semi sort of relationship triangle that does work itself out... there was a lot more development if the characters' relationships in this one, which helped. Still, some of the scenes seemed to take forever to build up to the crescendo point. The magic system seemed to make more sense to me this time around, and I'm not sure if that's because of the help of this book, or because it wasn't completely new, since I've read book one before.

There are people who would enjoy this story. I'd recommend it to readers who enjoy very fast paced books. I didn't find it particularly deep, but it's not quite "fluffy" either. Someone looking for a quick but action packed adventure may find it here.

I love the aesthetic and vibe of this duology; I just wish the plot were a little stronger, a little less "AND ANOTHER THING," a bit less of a scramble. Still gorgeous and fun.

*Spoiler Free*

“What did she know about the Black Forest? Only what she’d been able to glean from the maps in the library and from Luc’s fairy tales: Castles hidden in glens. Trees as tall as city buildings. Wolves and stags and bears. Mad princes who drowned in lakes. None of Mada Vittora’s books described an ancient academy deep in the woods, a place where it always snowed, where girls wanted magic badly enough to die for it.”

It had been awhile since I finished the first book in this duology (Grim Lovelies). I think I much preferred the first one, but the writing in the one was equally beautiful.

Midnight Beauties starts off a little after the first one, with our main character Anouk attempting to find her way to the witches school in the Black Forest. This could mean her life could end once she goes through the trial the school imposes on those dead set on becoming witches.

I loved the introduction of the newest characters in this one as well as many of the older character. They all had interesting back stories. The interactions between characters was equally interesting and at times so sad.

One of the main reasons I chose to give this a 4/5 was the fact that a love triangle was introduced. It was too back and forth for my tastes and honestly quite unnecessary.

I will be keeping this on my shelves regardless because it belongs with its predecessor.