Curses

After about 24 hours to ruminate, I've come up with my final rating and some thoughts.

4.5 stars—half of the last one deducted because I felt like the ending didn't quite wrap everything up as well as I thought would be fitting for this kind of book. For me, this is basically a comfort read, and ideally, for me, a comfort read shouldn't leave so many questions. For example:

-What happens with Val and Kaiya? I very much appreciate not coupling all the characters off, but this particular potentiality was practically a subplot, so it feels weird to not have some kind of resolution at all. (Personally I've decided, apropos of absolutely nothing, that Kaiya is ace—though not necessarily aro, soooo...!)

-Hob??? Hob Hob! Hob?! HOB

-Basically most of the side characters' arcs felt sort of unfinished. Hob has this whole unexplored backstory (and future) I would kill to read, and Latimer's last appearance seemed to hint at a future tale of his own, and Kate was way too hyped to be left unwritten.

All that said, though, I really do think a good epilogue would have been enough to put to rest most of these loose ends for me. It felt like one was coming, and I even went back and reread the ending to check whether I missed something the first time. (And then checked the author's page for related short stories and novellas.) Maybe the ending was just a little too quick overall for me; it definitely felt like it was leading up to something more, like possibly a sequel/series based on side characters' own adventures or at least an epilogue to round things out, until right at the last page.