Man... On the one hand, I stopped in the middle of this book and it took me 1 1/2 years to pick it up again. While I enjoyed seeing a different ark here, I wish we weren't stuck with a school arc. Like having a fantasy set at a school is fine, but since that wasn't how this series began I wasn't expecting or wanting that here. The book also suffers from presenting conflicts for Ophelia, like Mediana and the murders/attempted murders, but then they are solved without her having to solve them herself and that's frustrating. I also wish we could have had more of Ophelia and Thorn together, tho it seems like there'll be more of that in the last book.

On the other hand, after I picked it up I finished this in a matter days. Would have finished it sooner too if I hadn't forgotten it at work. It excels at keeping my interest and wanting to see what happens next. I genuinely still want to see this series to the end. The setting continues to be so unique and the stakes did feel serious once I knew what they were. And while it wasn't much, at the end I did get the romance I was hoping for. I just feel like forcing Ophelia to go through the virtuoso stuff distracted from the larger plot moreso than added to it.

In the end I still like it a lot, but it was a bit of a let down compared to the first two books.