I think people who love the Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern will like this book a lot. Unfortunately for me, that book was one of my most disappointing reads of last year and the similarities between these two books means that the Last Tale of the Flower Bride ended up not being what I hoped it would be. 

There are definitely elements of this I enjoyed. First off, the writing was gorgeous. I definitely want to try Chokshi’s other works because she is obviously a very talented writer. I loved the atmosphere. I don’t know if the House of Dreams ever really felt gothic to me, but overall the writing and setting had an excellent fairy tale atmosphere. I also (as usual) swapped between the physical book and audiobook and thought the dual narration was excellent. Definitely worth reading in audio if you can. And, despite my issues, I was still very interested in the mystery and intrigue of it all. The book sets you up with some really big questions at the beginning and keeps you guessing the whole time.

The biggest issues I had were with structure, pacing, and characterization. The book swaps between the perspectives of an unnamed man called “the Bridegroom” who marries Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada in the early chapters, and Azure, Indigo’s childhood best friend. The first section of the Bridegroom and Indigo’s meeting and falling in love was RUSHED. I needed more about their romance to root for them and feel connected to their relationship. Azure’s chapters were the best parts of the story, but we get so much information and cover so much ground in them while the Bridegroom’s chapters are truly all vibes, no plot of him just wandering around the House of Dreams and never really interacting with Indigo. I wish that we didn’t rush past the early stages of his relationship with her and had gotten more of the development of him being entranced by her as we learned about her through Azure’s POV. The structure of the back and forth of their POV chapters really made the middle section drag for me and it’s my biggest beef with this book.

While Azure got a lot of good characterization and I really connected to her and understood her motivations and desires, Indigo and the Bridegroom were so underdeveloped. I really liked the small snippets of the Bridegroom’s past that we got in his chapters and wish that was fleshed out more. Those were the moments when I felt like I got what his deal was and otherwise he felt pretty boring as a character. I don’t even really know what to say about Indigo except that I wanted more. I wanted to understand more about her family dynamic and why she was the way she was. It felt like she had these quirks and fears and complexities just under the surface but the book didn’t let things go deep enough to really explore that. I definitely didn’t see the reveal at the end coming but, aside from it being surprising and pretty clever narrative-wise, it didn’t do much for me as far as the characters went.

There is definitely an audience for this book and I can see why people like it. If you like very vibes-heavy books with gorgeous prose but not too much substance with characters, this will probably work for you. It’s also pretty short and didn’t take me very long to get through, so that’s a bonus too.