The Court of Miracles was a fast paced and entertaining novel, and it was easy to read and enjoy. That being said, it was nothing special compared to countless other young adult fantasy novels that contain the overused "revolution/resistance" trope.

The writing was solid, fast paced, and easy to follow. I rarely mistook one character’s POV for another. The nature of the storytelling was entertaining, and kept me hooked. Though I do thank the fast paced nature of the book for that, it made certain sections feel rushed.

All in all, this read is a disappointment nonetheless. My hopes were sky-high. The Court of Miracles was not a great book for me, I perceive it to be slow and unchallenging in the beginning, and the rising thrill that follows the dry season couldn't entirely make up for it. This probably caused me some difficulties settling into this French inspired city. It bothers me that I have very little good to say about this book. Expectations shattered, hopes lost. Welcome to my reading reality.

Let's continue with some of the good stuff, shall we? I enjoyed the POVs, which offered a multidimensional view on the plot and made for a deeper understanding of all the different dynamics that shape the course of the book. They also enable the reader to get a better knowledge of the characters.

Things really fell apart for me towards the end. Some concepts where introduced so late in the story that they lacked credibility. While the story didn't have a satisfactory enough conclusion for me personally even if it is a series.

In the year 2020 we may be getting hit with a pandemic...

BUT BY THE GODS WE ARE ALSO GETTING SOME REALLY GOOD BOOKS.

The Court of Miracles... I don't exactly know what the hell I was expecting when I read this was inspired by THE JUNGLE BOOK and Les Miserables (TO BE PERFECTLY HONEST I've only watched the Disney version of the Jungle book--and mostly only remember the singing parts--and I have never watched Les Miserables...what are you doing, do not make me meet Madame Guillotine!) but OH GODS IT WAS SO GOOD. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE SECOND BOOK WILL BE ABOUT BUT I KIND OF WANT IT NOW?!

Don't judge my fangirling too harshly; I only fangirl this hard when I really care. Here are some highlights:

1. The story development *chef's kiss* I just loved how it was divided into four parts, and each part was just as interesting as every other part so there was no dead weight and no slowing down. It was balanced oh so very well, the seeds of a new revolution, the way the MC waters those seeds but only to use them for her own purposes, the different facets of society clashing in this gray world... 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

2. The characters--specifically, NINA THE F*ING BLACK CAT. She is a BADASS, but not in the punchy stabby way, more in a THIS GIRL WEAVES PLOTS UPON PLOTS AND STEALS EVERYTHING SHE NEEDS IN ORDER TO SUCCEED. She herself will tell you she is not pretty in any way shape or form (and not in that fake "I am not pretty but every guy in the universe tells me otherwise!"), but man she is a FORCE TO RECKON WITH (which is why she has like three different guys eating out of the palm of her hand ;) not that she cares, because she is totally focus on he priorities which leads me to...

3. SISTERLY BONDS! The Court of Miracles could have easily been called The Court of Sisters who Keep Being Taken Away only for Nina to Lose her Shit and Swear Vengeance Upon Those who Took Them™ I loved the relationship between Nina and Azelma, and then Nina and Ettie. While Nina and Ettie might have started out a little dark and rocky, she quickly turns around and tries to make it right. For years. I also loved Ettie's character growth, but thought that perhaps Nina should have trusted her a little more.

4. Romantic Interestsssss... I am only adding this because, well, there are like three different guys who seem to be besotted with Nina. But, who can blame them? The Court of Miracles is NOT a romance, not does it even have a centralized romance, the romance is the sisterly bonds, but you do get funny/heart palpitating bits with all three gentlemen, and let us just say maybe only two are serious contenders... and I am pulling for one murdery guy in specific ;) BUT IT IS NOT A HUGE DEAL AT ALL and doesn't affect the story other than much needed relief from the constant plotting.

Should you pre-order The Court of Miracles? EFFING YES! It was awesome! The writing was spectacular, the story well thought out and intriguing, the characters are all three dimensional and amazing... Can I get book #2 already for crying out loud?

Unfortunately I’m in the minority and did not enjoy this book. The premise sounded interesting, and I love books that take place during this historical time. I do admire the writing and the extensive world building to create the different Courts and set up this world. Despite this, most of the book bored me and I am not interested in reading the rest of the series.

I really enjoyed the premise of The Court of Miracles. Despite apparently remembering little about Les Misérables, I was able to make a few connections and enjoyed when the book vered away from the story I knew (particularly with Valjean and Javert although I want more of their story). I really liked the Guilds and the way each section opened with a story that created more history and world building around them. And you know I'm always a sucker for a book about sisters.
However, it is the comparison to Six of Crows where I found this book suffered., especially having just read that other book. While Six of Crows is a book about the relentless, creative planning one big heist, The Court of Miracles jumps around to several without explaining any of them at all. Rather than make Nina a mastermind on the level of Kaz Brekker, it makes her appear like someone who rushes into things and somehow manages to always escape. Several times I found myself saying, "She's breaking in already??" because the character had just been given the idea of the mission and then immediately sets into action with no thought explained to the reader. It made the story feel rushed at times as if it was trying to get to the next thing rather than really showing Nina's skills or her interactions with the people she worked with. I can't even call them her team because not enough time is spent building the relationships with those people who aren't Ettie or the Guild leaders.
I almost gave up the book in the middle, but I am glad I didn't. By the end I found myself engaged in Nina's story and her plots and new group of friends. I liked her trying to find her place in more than one world and even the love square she finds herself in (once again always #TeamBroodingMurderGuy).
I will read the next book in this trilogy because I do want to find out the rest of Nina's story and what happens next.

I would like to start by saying that I've never read nor seen 'Les Mis', and my only knowledge of 'The Jungle Book' comes from movie adaptations. As such, neither of those stories had any influence on my opinion of the book.

How do I start about this book? You see, I had a rather peculiar reading experience with this one. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the author's writing style and certain aspects of the story so much. There was a definite atmosphere the author was going for and she certainly managed it. It was an intriguing story with lots of moving parts, though it took me a bit to fully understand them. Once I got to the second half, I was so captivated by the writing style and the flow of the words that I almost couldn't bring myself to set the book(/kindle app) down. I can definitely see so many people loving this one, truly.

On the other hand, I had several technical and personal problems with it that kept me from rating it any higher. Now, clearly, I'm reading an unfinished copy so things may very well look different in the final copy. However, most of the things I had problems with are plot points I can't see being removed. Things like the fact the main character has romantic tension with THREE different guys, or the disjointed effect of the several time jumps. It never seemed clear to me where or when we were for that matter.

We start the book with Nina being told that no one can know she's a girl, and then for the rest of the story, everyone knows she's a girl. Here's the thing, clearly time had passed and she was no longer attempting to conceal her identity, but it was never fully made apparent. There was no noticeable distinction between the time periods.

On the topic of Nina, she was a heroine I both understood and got annoyed by. There were moments where the reader can feel completely swept up in her devotion for the people she cares about, and other moments when the reader is face-palming at her sheer stupidity. Moments when she doesn't even question what she's being told to steal or who she's being told to steal from. Or when a character is trying to reason with her and she completely shuts them out because she's the 'black cat' and therefore, untouchable by all reason.

Overall, I really am not sure how to feel about this one. I know for a fact people will love it, and much of that praise will be deserved. I enjoyed myself while reading it, for the most part. I just can't look past some of the issues I had with the book altogether and rate it higher.

A sumptuous and delightful mash up of Les Miserables and The Jungle Book. Despite some similarities this story is only a loose retelling of the two, set in an alternate history Paris during a time simmering with the threat of a revolution. The court of miracles is the kingdom of those who are less fortunate than the nobility prancing behind their gilded gates. It's a place not for the weak or faint hearted. Its where souls struggle to irk out a living. The court is divided into separate criminal guilds. The guild of assassins, the guild of thieves, the guild of flesh, to name only a few. They each abide by a series of dubious moral codes that keep order in a place of chaos. Nina's older sister is sold by her brutish father to Kaplan, the leader of the guild of the flesh. Nina, a member of the guild of Thieves, sets out with the purpose of saving her sister from the claws of Kaplan and protecting her ward Ettie from the same fate. She will have to use her ingenuity to find a way to save her sister and not cause a war between the guilds. The book focuses strongly on sisterly bond versus the romantic. There are a few romantic interests thrown into the mix to shake things up as a secondary plot but it's not fully addressed here in book one. Kester Grant has delivered a worthy tale. Thank you netgalley and publisher for this ARC.

I wasn’t expecting much going into this book, the genre isn’t really my favorite. That being said, I was highly impressed by this book. I went in not even knowing what it was about, and I think that’s the best way to go. The world building was phenomenal and even though there wasn’t romance, I still think this holds its own. This book gave me a slight taste of Six of Crows, yet the world and its characters were original and great. It did take some time for the world building to be set up though.

Book Review!
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First, I want to thank Net Galley and Knopf for sending me a copy of this book. The first thing that caught my eye about this book was the comparison to Six of Crows. Pretty much anything that is compared to Six of Crows, I will absolutely give it a shot. For me, I'm hoping this is a book that needs the second book to really take off the ground. By the end of the book, I was really into the storyline, the characters, and the relationships that were unfolding. I thought that the idea is clever and new, which is hard to achieve in the YA Fantasy world, since everything is practically a one-off from another book. I found Nina to be an interesting character and the supporting characters to each have their own, unique personality. I'm hoping that we will be able to dive deeper into the character development in the rest of the series, but I understand why it didn't happen in the first book. Grant covered so much ground plot-wise, it would have been hard to really spin the web of each character. Here is where I discuss the downsides of this book for me. For nearly the entire first part and a portion of the second part, I had trouble figuring out what was happening, who everybody was, and why certain things were happening to certain characters. There is a lot of connecting the dots that is needed, especially with the unexplained time jumps. A lot of my questions started to become answered as you got further along in the story. You could tell that Grant meant to reveal that Nina was concocting plans outside of the plotline, later to be revealed, which I thought was clever. However, I thought there was a need for more explanation towards the beginning of the story, which would have made this a 5-star read for me, but I'm only giving it 3.5/5.

3.5 or 4 stars

I liked this! I'm a big Broadway fan and I was humming the musical the entire time. RTC closer to release date.

THE COURT OF MIRACLES is an enagaging and lush YA historical that imagines an alternate France where the revolution has failed and a Court of Miracles was born. The Court of Miracles contains groups of criminals with a code. This includes a Guild of Thieves, a Guild of Beggars, a Guild of Assassins, etc. Nina was very young when her sister pushed her to leave home, and she joined the Guild of Thieves, becoming the Black Cat.

Since then, she has gained some notoriety for her thievery. However, what truly drives her is getting her older sister back/free. Her sister was sold to the Tiger, the man who took over the Guild of the Sisters and made it into Flesh. He is ruthless and many of the Guild leaders are afraid of him. Nina's plot to get her sister back goes awry due to her own emotions, and she ends up running with a young girl, Ettie. In the process of figuring out how to keep Ettie away from the Tiger and how to get her sister out, Nina will encounter a new revolution, dangerous royalty, and much cruelty.

This is not a light story. As warnings, there is domestic abuse, forced prostitution, maimed children (for begging), starving, horrific deaths, and drug abuse.

What I loved: Nina completely captivated me from the start. She has had a really difficult life and maintains her humanity in a world where that is an impossible challenge. The plot is paced perfectly, gripping from the start and making it unputdownable. I also really loved the building of the criminal empires with rules and non-rules and questionable morality. We explore some of the Guilds a bit, and it was entirely fascinating.

I also really liked how Nina does not have a romance here. Her love for her sisters is paramount. There are a few potential romantic interests who seem to be interested in her, but Nina is focused on her goals and does not seem to get caught up in these (no matter how much Ettie wishes her to have romances). It made the story and Nina's drive that much stronger.

What left me wanting more: A small thing, but there were time jumps that I needed a bit more information to fully orient myself to. Each section leaps ahead by an amount of time, which varies. This may be corrected in the final version of the novel.

Final verdict: Lush, captivating, and filled with compelling characters, THE COURT OF MIRACLES is a beautifully crafted YA historical series. Highly recommend for fans of THE GILDED WOLVES, SIX OF CROWS, and/or SOMETHING DARK AND HOLY.

Please note that I received an ARC through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis:

Les Misérables meets Six of Crows in this page-turning adventure as a young thief finds herself going head to head with leaders of Paris's criminal underground in the wake of the French Revolution.

In the violent urban jungle of an alternate 1828 Paris, the French Revolution has failed and the city is divided between merciless royalty and nine underworld criminal guilds, known as the Court of Miracles. Eponine (Nina) Thénardier is a talented cat burglar and member of the Thieves Guild. Nina's life is midnight robberies, avoiding her father's fists, and watching over her naïve adopted sister, Cosette (Ettie). When Ettie attracts the eye of the Tiger--the ruthless lord of the Guild of Flesh--Nina is caught in a desperate race to keep the younger girl safe. Her vow takes her from the city's dark underbelly to the glittering court of Louis XVII. And it also forces Nina to make a terrible choice--protect Ettie and set off a brutal war between the guilds, or forever lose her sister to the Tiger.

My Thoughts:
A huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review....
The plot of this story is fast paced, and completely enthralling!!
The band of misfit characters is awesome, and gives the story a relatable point for readers. The guilds are extremely detailed, vivid and cruel. The world building was honestly impeccable.
There was alot of politics and court intrigue between both parts of the world.
The guild however aren't so complicated you can't follow.
The plots timeline was easy to follow also. All around this is going to be a great read, and one to watch out for... Coming soon!!!

Yes.

All the yes.

I loved this book so much, and I can't wait to get the next book in my hands.

This is a loose retelling of Les Misérables, and I believe I've seen The Jungle Book pop up somewhere before the official summary came out? Anyways, I know very little of Les Misérables but I know the general story. A few other books I thought of when reading this were Six of Crows, Diamond City and Ace of Shades. Some of them more than others of course. I also had a nagging feeling towards the end of a lot of similarities to another book, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what book (or maybe even show/movie) it was. That's beside the point though.

The writing style was amazing, and I never once felt like the book dragged or started to bore me. I grew to enjoy the majority of the characters introduced, and some I even grew to dislike (but in a good way). The main plot isn't anything out of this world, but the journey as we get to the end of this first book was filled with so many things that surprised me. I was never bored even though I knew how some events would begin or end. Even the ending, which was what I expected, was something that I really liked. The pacing isn't fast, but it did get slow at times. Despite that, I never once felt like skipping around or begging for the book to get my attention again. I enjoyed the slow parts, and I never once minded when the characters needed to get a breather.

I haven't read a book that caught my attention like this in a while. Usually when I give 5 stars it's because I'm rounding up from 4.5 or 4.75. This is different though. I'm seriously confident in my feelings. I know I adored this book, and every second spent reading was enjoyable for me. It got me to enjoy the characters, both the good and the bad, and I didn't mind the predictability that occurred at times. There aren't many books that made me genuinely have fun reading. So for that I'm giving it the solid 5 stars. I enjoyed it so much that my mind completely blew past anything that might've usually been an issue for me. I loved this, and I seriously recommend checking it out.

I enjoyed this book.. it was a little slow at first but in the end it actually surprised me. Thank you @netgalley for letting me read this book!

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Holy cannoli guys. I remember the first time I ever watched Les Misérables on Broadway. It was completely magical and I loved every second of it. Then I dove into the movie, and loved that all over again. Now I get this wonderful and magical book, boy was I hooked from the very beginning. YES, it took me two days to devour it but I fully blame work. For some reason, it kept cutting into my damn reading time.. which I'm not a huge fan of.

Seriously, this book was so freaking good. I loved all the characters so much. Especially my bad ass ninja Nina. Not quite sure if I want to ship her with anyone because she is just completely amazing all on her own. I'm one hundred percent okay with friendships all around right now. Then there's Ettie, and I'm excited to watch her grow up even more. Heck, with what little Nina has taught her she is bound to survive and thrive on her own. Look at you little ghost!

Other than that, this book had a lot of betrayal in it. Like a LOT. I was shocked on a bunch because what the hell... who can you really trust? The only thing I would change is the ending. I'm so mad with how it ended and I desperately need the next book! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT GUYS!

I received a copy through NetGalley for review.

I want to first preface that I am not a big Le miserables fan.
So the fact that I enjoyed this as much as I did says a lot.
There's absolutely no wasted plot points in this entire book. Every motion has a purpose and a lot of it I didn't even see coming. I'm really impressed.

The Court of Miracles. The wretched of France, with their own guilds and laws.
The Guild of Gamblers, Beggars, Assassins, Mercenaries, Smugglers, Letters, Thieves, Dreamers, Flesh.
Nina, the black cat. Is a clever, whip smart girl. Belongs to The Guild of Thieves.
She will do whatever it takes to save one sister after she has lost the other. Sold into the The Guild of Flesh, by her terrible father, the other may face the same fate if she does not intervene.
Nina does not forgive and she does not forget.

Ettie is a ward of her father. Sweet and naive and of all else, beautiful. Nina cannot bare to see her broken, like Azelma. Her eyes hazed and empty from opium. To be sold and used by the cruelest of men. Like Kaplan, the Tiger. The Lord of Flesh.

The additional cast of characters really are something. Each with their own secrets. Many of who owe a debt to Nina for one thing or another. She's been collecting them.
I'm excited to see what the pay off will be for her, in the next book.
Although she has gotten far, there are many moving parts.
I'm very curious to see what it has gotten her in the end.

I really, really enjoyed this one.
* and someone better hurry up and turn this into a movie or show stat. It's written for it.

Very rarely does a book hook me within the first five pages. This book automatically grabbed my attention and held it for a good majority of the book. The characters were intriguing, the plot, the setting...everything! I loved how unique this book was with such different and strong-willed characters.

The world building is amazing. Set in 1800s France you can see the period and lifestyle of that age clearly through the description of clothing, the royalty, problems lie famine and plague. What makes this book stick out from any period fiction, is The Court of Miracles itself. Thieves, assassins, ghosts...each aspects of the courts is so well thought out. This book truly is one of a kind. I felt immersed into the world being able to visual what I was reading.

I loved the characters and found myself relating to them, loving them, and feeling empathic. Nina “Black Cat” is our main character desperate to save her sister the Lion, lord from the Fleshers Guild. We end up seeing Nina throughout the years, the book starting when she is nine and ending with her as an adult. Her goal stays the same throughout the book but her character development is what keeps you intrigued. Her love for Ettie (her adopted sister) is admirable. She’s also an interest character because of the three long interests. Who will you pick? I’m #TeamMontparnasse Montparnasse is an assassins and I adored his character—I just wish we got more of him.

This book definitely lived up to the hype. It was thrilling, action-packed, adventurous, unique, shocking, heartfelt and heart wrenching. You won’t want to miss out on The thrilling Court of Miracles! Five stars without a doubt!

Thanks NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review! Full review to come on my blogs two week prior to its release date.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Opening Sentence: "All Wretched are equal before the Miracle Court; neither blood, race, religion, rank, or name is recognized."

The Good: The worldbuilding is rich and lush. I could smell the pain au chocolate and it made my mouth water. I coughed on the dust as they ran through the city of the death under the streets of Paris. I winched and ached as Nina was whipped with the cat of nine tails. The imagery was spectacular and it left me wanting more. Just another glimpse. I love the Court of Miracles. The different guilds and their laws and the darkness of it. I wish we could have gotten to see more of them, their people, their ethos.

The Bad: The failed revolution left a bad taste in my mouth. The whole sale slaughter of men, women and children never sits well with me and I honestly hate it. I hate how everyone just brushes it aside like St Juste should be glad he wasn't caught up in the death of hundreds of people. I hate how damn spineless the Crown Prince was. It was a part of the plot that added nothing to the tale and wouldn't have taken away anything if it had been left out.

The Ugly: You know how you can spot a Mary Sue in a book? The main character is a girl, woman, old lady, female presenting characters and the rest of the cast of characters are boys, men, male presenting characters. you have Nina as the main character, and then her sister Azelma (who gets a whole chapter before she is swallowed up) and then her adopted sister Ettie. The rest of the cast are non-femme characters.

Nina is a complete Mary Sue. She is good at everything without the effort of learning or being taught. Everyone is in total love with her at first glance and willing to risk life, limb and liberty at her every whim. She listens to no one and always knows just what to do. She manages to walk into the French Palace and steal one of the crown jewels from the neck of the Dauphine without so much as a plan. She breaks into the most feared prison in Paris and manages to break out not one but two prisoners. She gets the Crow Prince of France to give her carriages full of bread, grain and other foodstuffs to fead all the guilds for months.

Basically everything she touches turns to gold and loves her with a shining devotion and loyalty that is not earned nor returned.

Nina is selfish and hides behind her tender heart to use and abuse people to their own peril. When she lost her sister, she put Ettie in the path of the Tiger to use her has a sacrificial lamb and then when she comes to her senses its too late to save Ettie, and then sparks off everything else in the book.

Thenardier, her father is just fodder for the chance for Nina to show how awesome is she. Here is a man that is a Master in the Thieves Guild. He has attained his greatness, he has a way to keep gold in his pocket, he has power, he has animals to do his bidding. And yet he sells his daughter to the Lord of Flesh?

Why? The price he got could have been stolen and in his hands in a single night of burgling. And then he just, 'always backs the winning side'. But why!! Where is his motivation to be this way? What is there to be gained by being this way? You can't just have a man sell his own flesh and blood to a slaver that he knows is going to use ad abuse his daughter for a few pieces of gold that he doesn't need. It doesn't make any sense.

The Court of Miracles gets 3 Stars despite its main character who doesn't deserve the love and loyalty of the rest of the characters.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

My Rating: 2.5 Stars

Alright, so I would like to begin this review by discussing the things that I liked about this book. For a debut novel, the prose was impressive. I really enjoyed the overall flow of Kester Grant’s writing, and the way that she was able to set a scene in my mind without over-describing things. The main character, Nina, was stunningly fierce and I loved her relationship with Ettie. The world the story was set in is wonderfully dark and I was beyond intrigued by the Court of Miracles and all of the different guilds. This novel has a badass heroine, and an incredibly gothic feel that I got sucked into immediately.

Unfortunately, there were a few things that kept this from being entirely enjoyable for me. I personally don’t need romance in all of my books. I enjoy a book with little or no romance, and have grown to only enjoy a love story that actually adds to the plot. Somehow, this book both lacked real romance, and had enough romantic interests that the plot sort of hinged on them. Let me explain, there are apparently three men in love with Nina – an assassin, a prince and a revolutionary. Without the feelings these three men had for Nina, with little to no prompting or reciprocity on her end, (with one exception) the entire plot would have fallen apart. Hell, even with these “romantic entanglements” I was surprised by the lengths some of these men went to for Nina. I just wish that the author had selected one romantic interest and developed Nina’s bonds with the other characters in a different manner.

The other struggle I had with this book was the lack of world building. We are introduced to this amazing world of thieves, murderers and criminals, but are given little real insight into their world. There are occasionally glimpses into the seedy underbelly of Paris, but given how enmeshed in it Nina is, I was honestly surprised by how little of it we saw. This book seemed to race along to the climax of the book, never slowing down to focus on world building and I feel that the plot suffered a bit as a result. Speaking of rushing the plot, there were time hops that threw me completely off balance. At one point, we skipped ahead two years and it took me way too long to figure out how far in the future we were and what the hell had happened in the meantime. I could do the math, I’m sure, but at this point I’m not even sure how old our MC is because I’m pretty sure I just straight up missed the lengths of a few time jumps.

Additionally, as a result of these time hops, I feel that Nina’s character development suffers. She goes from being a dependent and emotional young girl, to a ruthless thief in the blink of an eye and I felt deprived of her growth.

I think that I will give the second book in this series a chance when it comes out because I enjoyed Nina as a character and despite the difficulties I had, I did read the entirety of The Court of Miracles in one sitting. That being said, I don’t think that I’ll rush out to buy it on release day, sadly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Children’s for an e-arc of this review in exchange for an honest opinion.

I hemmed and hawed about what I was going to rate this book, because I wasn’t sure at all what I thought it should be, but in the end I settled on three stars. There were several reasons why, and I think it needs to be broken down into pieces to explain why I struggled so much with this book. This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the book, I did overall. I liked Nina a whole lot, and I was cheering her on the whole while, and yet…
First off, I don’t know what Les Mis is outside of memes and other references. I have never read or seen it. I essentially had no basis for this, and I think that partly played into my issue with this. Such as I recognized names, but they meant nothing outside of the book to me, and that in and of itself made the book hard to understand. Without the context, I felt some of the characters were left dangling, because to know and/or understand them, you had to know the original characters. And I didn’t.

The Writing
I really liked Kester’s writing. I thought it was lovely, and I liked reading it. I didn’t think that it was overly jarring one way or the other. I think the prose worked really well for me overall, and I enjoyed the dialogue.

The Pacing
The pacing I didn’t love. Skipping time, scenes…it just wasn’t working for me. I think it had so much potential but we would get really fast parts and then really slow parts…and it felt messy to me somewhat. Overall, I was left a bit dizzy.

The Plot
I was confused. I’m going to be honest, as I’m writing this review, this book was clearly out of my wheelhouse. The concept seemed so interesting, but I felt like you needed a degree in Les Mis to understand it. I didn’t know that at the time, and I wished I had. I feel that so much of the plot was related to the original work…and I didn’t understand it. I got the concepts overall, and what was going on. I liked bits and pieces overall, but I struggled through parts of the plot.

The Characters
Nina, Ettie, and like two other characters are the only ones that stuck with me. So many characters, and slightly hard to tell them apart. Not only that, some of the characters as I mentioned earlier were clearly related to Les Mis and I knew the names…but not what purpose they served. I don’t know, I liked Nina best. She was one of my favorites, and I liked her strength, but overall, I just didn’t love any of them. Most of them fell rather flat, but this was an enormous cast.

The World building
As an alternate Paris, I think it was really creative. Taking history and mixing it with Les Mis and other portions could have turned out really well. And I think it was atmospheric, and well described.

Overall
I enjoyed the book, but I think this one just wasn’t totally for me. I think if you like French history, Les Mis or anything like that, you’ll like this.
HOWEVER, advertised like Six of Crows? It sort of is, but not really.

This is another book that didn’t do it for me. I liked the main premise but it didn’t come together as I had hoped. I liked the French influence a lot because that’s one of my favorite things!