Ben Saufley

I really, really enjoyed this book. It's very accessible, really keeps you coming back, but it's also got a lot of layers to it. There is a point in the second act—when she starts trying to recruit for human trials herself—where I briefly felt like "wow, has this gone off the rails" but it's resolved in a satisfying way that makes sense in-universe and advances the plot. I was not really prepared for how it would end, which was unexpected but actually a really great way to end it. The fact that this story was inspired by the author watching her father die of cancer really adds something to the overall impact of the story, to me.

For a book that I've seen everywhere, which has now been turned into a miniseries, this was a pretty standard, unsurprising kind of thriller. Not a lot happened; not a lot of red herrings or interesting side plots. And after it was revealed what had happened to the protagonist's husband, I kept thinking what else there could be—what the next twist would be—because that couldn't be it. But that was it! If you'd asked me to guess at a cliché after the first chapter, this would've been on the list.

I really like these books. They're undeniably, overwhelmingly sentimental, but for me at least they pull it off so it just feels lovely, not saccharine or preachy. While the stories feel a bit younger, a bit more fairy-tale-ish, the experience of reading them definitely shares something with my experience of reading the Harry Potter series, before JKR took her castle of gold and became a cartoon villain. This series has some not-so-subtle allegories to real-life villains, and a central theme of this one is the corrupting influence of gold. I hope the author sticks with that and doesn't turn out to be another disappointment. It would be sad, because again, I like this series a lot.

I don't know. I was very intrigued by the premise of this book, but the execution was underwhelming. Firstly, even with the aid of the fact that it's winter where I am now, the book didn't have that kind of cold feel to it, the "we're trapped inside with the snow piling up outside" feeling. Something about how it was told. And then the resolution of the mystery was … disappointing. I had to go back and read it a few times to see if I'd missed something, but I hadn't. It's contrived, kind of out of left field, and with a lot of open questions. I still don't get how or why the spider factors into it, and who the guy who died was to our protagonist – nobody? Her husband just killed a stranger to spice up their life? And there's some implication that things might point at her as the culprit, but why would they? And all of this … with a few months left to live? Your husband murdered a guy so you wouldn't have an affair before you die? Really? Honestly the more I think about it all the madder I get about the resolution.

I really like these books. They're undeniably, overwhelmingly sentimental, but for me at least they pull it off so it just feels lovely, not saccharine or preachy. While the stories feel a bit younger, a bit more fairy-tale-ish, the experience of reading them definitely shares something with my experience of reading the Harry Potter series, before JKR took her castle of gold and became a cartoon villain. This series has some not-so-subtle allegories to real-life villains, and a central theme of this one is the corrupting influence of gold. I hope the author sticks with that and doesn't turn out to be another disappointment. It would be sad, because again, I like this series a lot.

I really like these books. They're undeniably, overwhelmingly sentimental, but for me at least they pull it off so it just feels lovely, not saccharine or preachy. While the stories feel a bit younger, a bit more fairy-tale-ish, the experience of reading them definitely shares something with my experience of reading the Harry Potter series, before JKR took her castle of gold and became a cartoon villain. This series has some not-so-subtle allegories to real-life villains, and a central theme of this one is the corrupting influence of gold. I hope the author sticks with that and doesn't turn out to be another disappointment. It would be sad, because again, I like this series a lot.

After just two novels (this and The Incandescent) Tesh has immediately made my list of preorder/instant buy on release authors. This book starts off with a certain set of pretty familiar tropes but very soon it's clear that there's more to this world, and not just in that other trope-y way (although, yes, that too). At each stage of this novel's plot I had no idea where it was going to go next, but each time I was satisfied with what did. Tesh set up a premise that, for me, didn't have a clear morally-just outcome, and then navigated it through some captivating scenarios to a pretty satisfying conclusion.

One thing that struck me as I finished this book is that I am so often bored out of my skull by stories that are close to this: galaxy-wide stakes, hand-wavy sci-fi devices with minimal grounding rules, all approaching a big race-against-the-clock climax; these things tend to pull back from the characters, especially in the third act, and in doing so they lose my interest. I don't think that happened here. Maybe because I was very bought-in; maybe because Tesh does well to keep the focus on the characters. Certainly because there are very few drawn-out combat scenes.

I think it was really interesting to watch Kyr's character develop slowly over the course of the novel, and especially in the end of the first act, when it kind of becomes clear that she is, at that point, not really a "good guy." Her attitudes, her indoctrination, encountering the truths out there, is a fascinating thing to watch, and while I think it happened a little quickly, I think Tesh did very well to never make it so plain as "Kyr was wrong and now she's learning what's right."

My major gripe is not very major at all: as the end approached, and it looked like Kyr might die in accomplishing her goal, I was disappointed—but then, when she was snatched from that fate, it felt a little cheap too. But not massively. In the end, I absolutely loved this novel.