I don’t want to get lost in the past. I want to embrace it and understand it.

Wow! This book is a lot—mostly in a very good way. In many ways, it felt like a whole season of a tv-show. The pre-Netflix days kind, the type with ~24 episodes that can afford to start a little slow, to include entire complete plot arcs inside its structure, to pivot now and then in new directions, and to end on a mouthwatering cliffhanger. The worldbuilding here has LOTS of moving parts, with the same aspects of the worlds meaning different things to different factions. Bree, the main character, is on about three intersecting journeys at once: working through her grief after her mother’s death, digging for the truth about her family’s past, and dealing with the whole “descendants of the Round Table knights are a modern-day secret society fighting demons” plot. With a single book being so packed, there was a bunch of stuff that kind of fell by the wayside / begged to be cleaned up a bit, but overall, I really enjoyed the experience. Not in small part because Bree is just such a likable character and her inner struggles are so well-written.

For something so big and expansive, the book is plotted really well, with the various storylines overall balanced against each other. The twists are set up subtly ahead of time and make sense while also being surprising. For a 500-pages book, this never felt overwritten or bloated. All the storylines and events were absolutely necessary for the bigger picture, and there’s clearly a lot of groundwork done for whatever’s to come in the next books (which I’m definitely picking up!). I loved how some of the events, both in Bree’s past and present, got recontextualized over the course of the story as more and more information was revealed. Even some layers in this plot have layers, and I’m really here for this.

I also very much enjoyed the prose and the character’s voice. There’s something incredibly endearing about it, and I felt like the writing nicely straddled the line between “to the point” and “pretty,” if that makes sense? On the whole, this is a plot-first story and the prose doesn’t distract from the events and conveys them effectively and smoothly. But there are also, nearly in every chapter, some nice, heartstring-tugging quotable lines, some small, memorable turns of phrase. Also, the banter is pretty great, especially whenever Sel enters the chat.

Another thing I appreciated a lot was how the questions of race were handled. I’m a white person who grew up in an overwhelmingly white environment, so it’s not my place to speak of how realistic, relatable etc this depiction actually is. But Bree’s experiences being the only person of color in environments designed for white people resonated with me and reminded me of the experience of being the only trans or the only neurodivergent person in a room. I found the way the worst aspects of the historical past were brought up and acknowledged and woven into the plot to be pretty thoughtful, and the book constantly made me think about all the ways we as humans could do better by each other, but like… not in a preachy way. More in a, “so these are the events that I know would have happened totally differently if they happened to someone not systematically discriminated against, now it’s my choice whether to dwell on it or not.”

Moving on from the gushing to the not so good parts, with such a focus on plot what sadly suffered was the character work. I’ve spotted a good number of situations where characters were so blatantly used as plot devices, like, ouch. There were no smoke and mirrors used to cover up the fact that they moved into specific positions or did specific things because that was necessary for the next plot point to happen (as opposed to creating the feeling that the next plot point only happened because certain characters, driven by their goals, conflicts, and motivations, made certain choices; the distinction might be subtle at times, but it’s there). The biggest example is Alice, Bree’s  supposed best friend. She just really only exists for the plot. She pops in and out of the story depending on whether her involvement can move Bree’s arc forward. She only ever does and says things that nudge Bree into the correct plot position. We know next to nothing about her own life, struggles, interests, opinions, anything—because she and Bree never talk about anything that isn’t about Bree’s current predicaments. Like come onnnn, at least try to make me believe there’s a fictional person behind the name! Sadness. At least other characters utilized in this manner get some moments of depths and humanity, too.

The richness of the setting also has a downside in how it’s all delivered. With the timeline being pretty tight (more on that in a minute) and Bree being a complete newcomer to the world of the supernatural and having to get immersed into not just one but two ways of perceiving this new world, it’s understandable that the options for conveying all the information were limited. But seriously, the first 1/3 of the book or so is just so full of lectures and explanations and telling, telling, telling that it got kind of tiresome. And speaking of the timeline, I felt like the book was generally well-paced until I looked back, did some math, and realized that the whole avalanche of events took place over like a few weeks at most. Like, damn! All this stuff could be safely spread over an entire school term, giving characters and relationships more room to breathe, and providing more opportunities for organically introducing worldbuilding details.

And for something that I’m not sure is an actual weakness as it’s a “not for me” thing: ugh, the love triangle. I sometimes enjoy them, when the choice between love interests also represents a choice between morals, lifestyles, goals, etc, but I didn’t feel this was at all the case here. And Bree’s romance with Nick, especially given the timeline, was just was rushed, insta-love-y, and plot-device-y, it did nothing for me and actually stood in the way of enjoying certain parts of the book. (Though it’s interesting that very late in the  story, amidst the final twists, the narrative sort of acknowledges this and provides in-universe explanation!) With Sel at least there’s a logical, emotionally charged progression from animosity to teamwork, plus he got all the best dialogue lines. So I guess that puts me on his team. but really, I felt that while this type of romantic subplot is a staple of the genre, it wasn’t super necessary for this specific story. I would have much preferred some of the page count that went into romance to be spent on having Bree clash and connect with other members of the amazingly diverse cast in a variety of ways.