I have complaints about this book. I have many. Complaints. About. This. Beautiful bastard of a book. But most of them boil down to the same base elements; I wanted more. I wanted more of godslaying Eril-Fane and his tragic marriage, I wanted more of just begging to be redeemed Thyon, I wanted more of Feral and Ruby and there accidental foray into maybe love. I especially wanted more, like an entire book, of everyone's favourite assassin/acrobat scaling the cloudspire. I'm serious, if the author is reading this, I am serious.

This is one of those books where it seems every single character, no matter how briefly they appear, is staring in their own amazing story that we could follow eagerly if we weren't stuck in Lazlo and Sarai's. I say stuck, as though it's a chore, as though Lazlo and Sarai's tale is a boring one, which it is certainly not but alas I lack Laini Taylor's effortless control of language so here we are. This is a novel that unfurls before you growing better and better and better again. There's something to love no matter where you look, from the stunning prose, to the characters, to the witty banter to the vivid worldbuilding and the heartbreakingly good plot. And then it has the audacity to go and end, and what am I supposed to do with myself now?

You'll notice I've not said anything particularly concrete about this book and what it's about, and that it's an absolute joy to discover for yourself. The plot unfurls perfectly, revealing new beauty and dark, incredibly dark, depths and it's wonderful and if I could send an army of moths into everyone's window with a copy of this book to read I would do it in a heartbeat.

I am eternally indebted to netgalley for giving me the chance to read this lovely book which I ultimately hated because, as I mentioned, it had the nerve to end.

If you loved Laini Taylor’s previous books, then you are going to love this one. She makes a world that is clever, interesting, full of people you’d love to meet and with interesting quirks. It has been a while since I read a YA fantasy book and it took me a bit to get into it at the beginning, despite the male lead being all kinds of wonderful and on top of that, a librarian. He is obsessed with finding out about the lost city of Weed, eventually he is offered the opportunity to travel there and discovers that there are good reasons why it is such a secret place. We also meet Sarai, one of the remaining few goddesses who have survived a terrible carnage which took place in Weed. There are ghosts, dream invaders in the form of beautiful moths, magic in many forms and flying machines made of plants. There is a lot going on, and it is beautifully described and very real sounding. The world within these pages is scary and gorgeous and I can see that it will have huge appeal to those who love a great YA fantasy.