Sylphrena

Toxic sapphic vampires... this one reeled me in pretty quickly, which was a bit of a surprise as multiple narratives are hard for me, especially before you see the connection. I wasn't really set back by it too much, mainly because I enjoyed both narratives from the start. I was a bit annoyed by the flashbacks to Alice's childhood, it felt like every time I got hooked into her chapters, I'd be stuck in a flashback, counting the pages till I'd be free. I liked the conclusion of those flashbacks and how it tied into the main narratives, but not sure it was worth it as that storyline was really the low-light of the book to that point.

I liked Sabine, she was pretty quick established to be an anti-hero. I loved the feral roses and unapologetic revenge but that pretty quickly went from "yeah, burn down your captor's house" to "uh, maybe don't murder that kid". The generational trauma was well done, to see Maria suffer and wish to escape the control of others, to hate feeling trapped, then to see that twist and grow into enacting those same patterns on Charlotte. Then, Charlotte manipulating Alice in her own way, both her and Sabine using Alice as a pawn... the conclusion felt appropriate, just sad. It was hard to read towards the end, felt like it had shifted from dark fantasy to straight-up horror.

I think that's my dose of this particular flavor of dark fantasy for a month or too.

I'm a fan of the charecter driven storylines, that's why I'm on my third book in this series, but I really suffered before I got hooked on this book. I had to set it aside for another books for a while because I really dislike split narratives, it really takes me out of the story most times... five separate POVs is a lot, especially when they don't converge for till late in the plot.

I found myself forgetting each character at every POV switch until over halfway through the book, so it was really hard for me to build momentum. I enjoyed the actual story, but this bothered me enough to sour the writing significantly.