This book is long and the first half takes some slogging through because that is where we see Gemma make so, so many mistakes. It gets rather tiresome to see how she continually doubts what she sees, wallows in indecision, trusts the wrong people, and has run-ins with her friends. Can't Gemma have just one confidant? Just one person who will actually understand that there is sometime serious going on in the Realms? Just one person who doesn't want the magic for her or his own gain? Ok. I guess she has Kartik, but he spends a good portion of the novel trying to avoid Gemma, and she spends a good portion of the novel angry with him. I know Gemma's isolation is a big part of her character but still.

Despite all that griping, the end of the novel turned out to be much more enjoyable because here Gemma deals with her mistakes and her friends come to her aid. I loved how things turned out with Circe. I liked the story with Pippa and the factory girls. I'm kind of still processing the whole Felicity and Pippa thing. How long was Libba Bray planning that? I can only think of clues in this last book. Felicity has so much to deal with. I guess I should have known that things wouldn't turn out happily ever after with Kartik, after all it's 1895 and he is Indian and Gemma English, but it was sad. I liked the lengthy denouement. We needed some downtime at the end. For some reason I was fearful that the book would end with Gemma losing her magic and the ability to enter the Realms, and I'm glad that wasn't the case.