~~Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC!~~

I absolutely loved I Feed Her to the Beast when I read it last year. When I saw its sequel, I have never wanted to get my hands on an ARC in all my life. The only difference this time around was that I was consuming it as an audiobook rather than text, and I was extremely curious to hear how Shea's writing would sound being performed aloud.

Even though this book was still good, it didn't grab me like its predecessor.

Firstly, the narrator was pretty good. Kristolyn Lloyd made Laure voice's very strong and imbed in my brain, and her narration of the scenes and descriptions were splendid, too. There were times I found it kind of goofy. I think it's because I was listening at 1.5x speed, but her voice for Acheron, which was demonic, felt very non-serious, as well as the accents she put on for other characters. It wasn't bad, nor did it hinder my enjoyment; it just pulled me from the story sometimes.

Speaking of which, the story started out good, but it kinda stretched itself thin at the end. There's only so many times you can say someone's spiraling, and Laure's mental health crises were more upfront rather than the clasping of her god's sanctuary. Normally, I wouldn't mind that, but her thoughts got very repetitive. I think this was a problem in the last book, too, but I really felt it here. There were so many times I wanted Laure to lose it on someone, to tell them flat out what she was thinking rather than sit there and seethe on it. That probably speaks more to her character, because the reason she got here in the first place was due to taking all the crap the world has thrown at her throughout her life. But I wanted her to be more unhinged vocally, for her to show how monstrous she's become while inhabiting an eldritch god.

There's so much happening outside of Laure's downward plunge, but it still feels like nothing all that much at he same time. Her boyfriend is scared of her for a bit before getting over it (She also gets a girlfriend? Kind of? That wasn't explicitly clear by the end), her protegee turns on her, a certain parental figure bombards back into her life, there's a whole other god name Leafy (Forgive me if I spell it wrong; I'm assuming based off the audiobook), which makes me laugh because I kept imagining it being LeafyIsHere, and said new god has a acolyte named Gabriel who becomes Laure's new ballet teacher/enemy/father figure(?). Despite all of this, I wasn't entranced as I was with Laure's struggles last book. I dunno, the connections with her struggles last time felt more intertwined, more natural, and here it felt - scattered. I feel like some threads could have been trimmed to make the whole tapestry a little cleaner, but, ultimately, it is what it is.

I think I would still recommend this book to anyone who loved the first one just to see through the end of Laure's story. Plus, I still like the writing, even with the repetitiveness. I can only hope whatever Shea does next grabs me like their debut.