Short but impactful story about the meeting of cultures, colonialism, and cycles of violence. The writing is stunning and the author note in the beginning made the experience quite special, as Le Guin mentions that she was very politically active in the 60s, protesting against the Vietnam war, but lost her political outlets as she moved to the UK where she wrote this book as a means to vent out her feelings. Could be finished in one sitting, would probably recommend to literally anyone, but especially those with a passion for social justice.

Slightly different flavour of Garber's writing but I wouldn't call this more mature. We get the same vivid whimsy of her descriptions + a bit more murder/death than in the Caraval/OUABH world. I was hoping for a steamier romance but maybe there's still a time and place for that in the sequel.

At the beginning, I thought this was an extremely unserious book, and was kind of turned off by the flippant "let's go solve mysteries" vibe. And then the second half REALLY captured me, and I have to say I really enjoyed the twists and turns and never knowing who you can fully trust. So took a bit of time to get going and I wasn't super invested, until I completely inhaled the rest of the book in one go.

The characters were hit and miss for me. Some were really just names on a paper with a couple of personality traits we were supposed to attach to them, whereas two blonde very vivid and interesting characters come to mind who I would love to see more of in the sequel ✨️✨️✨️✨️

The FMC didn't have a strong opinion about most things she encountered and was a bit lost in this world of mysteries and guesswork, which was supposedly her major and doctoral topic (!!), so I don't know how believable and interesting she felt as a character.... I would hope to find out a bit more about her personality in the sequel.

It's a book that left me with a bit of questions but not in an unpleasant way. More in a glittery old-Hollywood-flavoured-Caraval kind of way. Might come back for more. It was a fun enough ride and I have more mysteriiies to solve.