This book was a roller-coaster for me. At first glance, the premise and gloomy vibes seemed delicious and right up my alley, but I also had my issues with it. We were given a quite naïve main character (who literally kinda grew up in a monastry and didn't know much outside of it, so it's very understandable) who took everything at face value, was prideful, and didn't really reflect on what was going on. So catching onto the plot and finding any intuitive standing within the characters took quite a while! Perhaps like Sybil, we were just supposed to be a little uncertain about everything? Too new to the world to properly judge it? But then on the other hand, she was an incredibly bad-ass character who was exploring her own strenght and voice in the world so that was interesting.

I found the prose slightly overworked. I really loved it at times, and at other times it felt like a lot of lyrical prose and philosophical musings even in the most mundane paragraphs which started to feel a bit much at times.

I did really really love the side character of the gargoyle ❤️ He added some beautiful comic relief moments but also genuine heart to the story. And Rory was quite dreamy. Huge fan. I am hoping both of these boys get a lot of scenes in the next book. Maybe even some POVs!? Would be juicy territory for fanfiction if not.