This wasn't the five-star read I've come to expect from Brown. The beginning was good. The middle was laborious, but the end redeemed itself. I felt that Brown fell into the perilous realms of dispassionate prose in parts. I struggled with the lack of emotive response to Lysander's POV. The prose also felt convoluted and had a tendency to pull me out of the plot. However, I wept near the end and feel rudderless without the release date of Red God.