This book had excellent pacing and I was so relieved that V.E. Schwab is not afraid to kill people off. Some aspects of this book were great as a fantasy novel, particularly the world-building. I felt, however, that the magic system was a bit under-developed. It felt as though the magic operated in a very hand-wavey manner, like there were arbitrary reasons why certain things would or wouldn't work. For example, why would a spell not work for the entire book but suddenly work in the 11th hour? 

There is a mark of YA fantasy that made itself apparent here, in which things just work with little negotiation or reasoning. I felt that this element made it very difficult to relate to the characters and limited their growth and development throughout the story. Though V.E. Schwab does not shy away from killing characters, it's more typical of people on the sidelines. I thought much of the dialogue was cringey. I thought Lila, Rhy, and the Danes twins were very stereotypical characters with very little dimension. I grew frustrated with everything "working out" in unexplained ways, there was no error in this book and, if there was, it was resolved with more serendipitous, unexplained solutions. 

The book is fine, I'll absolutely recommend it to people. I think my standards are quite stringent, especially for fantasy, and I care very deeply about character growth in my stories. I just found that this story was missing many of the elements I value in fantasy.