This book should be required reading everywhere. It changed my brain chemistry and I already wish that I could erase my memory and reread this book from the very beginning immediately after finishing it. The way that this author ties up discussions of transphobia, misogyny, gender roles, colonialism, and classism while writing a compulsively readable story should be studied because it was done damn well almost perfectly.

tl;dr Silas Bell can commune with the spirits that dwell beyond the Veil, but as a trans autistic man, not only is he seen as a woman in 1883 London, but he also has little to no rights. Where he wants nothing to do with spirits and hopes to become a surgeon, his family expects him to marry well, and when he fails to escape, he is sent to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School to become the perfect wife. But when he gets messages from ghosts of former students begging him to help get them justice, he realizes that it will take all of his whole and true self to expose Braxton's to the world.

Silas is truly one of the most relatable characters that I have ever read in fiction. While the way that his autism presents is fairly different from mine, there were so many moments when I was like, "OMG yes that is me!" This was a character where I really felt seen by the narrative and could almost fully relate to. His autism is never treated as a joke or something to be changed (beyond how he mentions his family had tried to get tutors to change him when he was young), and is in fact something that is a strength—but the author also does not shy away from the weaknesses/downsides either. It's not presented as some sort of invincible superpower, which would honestly be equally insulting. The way that the narrative describes Silas masking his autistic traits in public and around others was descriptive, but not overwrought. In other words, truly well done.

“We are the same species. We're all human. It's not that people cannot understand me; it's simply that most of them don't want to."

And of course, the depiction of Silas' struggles with being a trans man in Victorian England was equally well done. I can't speak from experience in this case, not being trans, but I really felt for the way that he was forced to respond to and act as a girl when he clearly is not and has never been one. The book is super blunt about the damage that gender roles and societal "values" do to people who don't fit the norms. This is obviously Silas' specific experience of being trans, but he specifically states that he has no issue with his own body, just the social conditioning and expectations associated with the gender that is also associated with his body. It's just another way that society forces everyone into little boxes and can't accept any sort of deviation. But Silas continues to fight for his right to exist and be who he is, despite everything that his family and society tries to tell him. At the core of all of this horror is still hope.

"There is nothing wrong with my body. When I am alone, I am in awe of it...it is all a grand work of genius, and I could never begrudge the one that was given to me. I hold no hatred for the shape it takes...It is only when I step back to see it all through another's eyes that I want to unravel it and carve the meat into a new, different, more acceptable shape."

This book takes the feral anger at forced gender roles and sexist policies that pervaded (and still pervade) society and throws it all at the readers. Not only are the other girls at the school are all victims of (and in some cases, end up being perpetuators of) that misogyny in different ways, but the whole idea of Veil sickness is just another way that the white and cis men at the top of the hierarchy try and control women, similarly to how women in the real world were diagnosed with hysteria if they acted out of line. There were so many quotes that demonstrated how the people within this society thought about women that were so infuriating, but they're all essentially based on real history. It was also so sad that this system ensured that the women at Braxton's were set against each other as well. Because of the way the system is set up, they essentially ensured that the women see each other as competition so that they don't end up working together for the betterment of all of them. And yet—like I said earlier, this story is about hope within the horror. No matter the seeming strength of the patriarchy, the strength of those oppressed is greater.

“Men all hurt us in their own unique ways. None of us carry the same bruises the same aches.”

I loved the other girls at the school, both as characters and also in the roles they play narratively as well. I especially found Charlotte and Mrs. Forrester fascinating because they either convinced themselves or tried to convince themselves that they were happy to comply with the system in order to survive. Truly so relatable to what is happening today with tradwives trying to convince themselves and everyone else that their way is the way that leads to happiness. Mary is another particularly interesting character who starts out as someone who appears to be a bully, but as you follow her story, you realize why she is the way she is. This book truly describes the different types of pain and trauma caused by men incredibly realistically, because it's not always just physical pain.

This is a horror as well as a fantasy book, and I found the use of blood and gore to be especially effective in this book because violence is still being done to people who don’t “conform” today. Not always in the same way, and it's not always physical violence, but it’s absolutely being done. I love that the author wanted to make that super clear through his use of gore and blood; he did not shy away from fairly graphic descriptions of (forced) surgery and injuries. It was a very smart use of a horror device without only using it as a cheap trope to scare, which makes the horror ten times more effective because that feeling of something being horribly wrong is insidious and creeps inside you as you read.

Finally, there were so many amazing quotes that if I was annotating or highlighting this book, there would barely be any blank pages left. I found myself wanting to shout to someone about some turn of phrase or quote that was super relatable every other moment. For example:

"This is a tragedy that has only begun. It has not taken root, or forced society to become desensitized to its own horror. There's a difference between horrible things that have gone on forever, because you can almost convince yourself of the inevitability of an age-old cruelty, or almost its necessity. But not a new one. With a new one, the change is too great, the wound is too new, and you cannot convince yourself that it is imply the way of the world."

"Why is it that when they hide their faces, men become monsters instead of angels?"

“When the dead men come, we are waiting. We have been waiting so long. They must have convinced themselves they would never rot in the same dirt we do.”

There are honestly so many more amazing quotes in this book that I can't possibly highlight them all. I would recommend this book to literally everyone and anyone, but I will say to mind the trigger warnings because there are a shitton (off the top of my head, tw for: abortion, adult/minor relationship, blood, child abuse, confinement, deadnaming, gore, misogyny, sexism, transphobia, forced institutionalization, medical content/trauma, pregnancy, rape, and sexual assault). This book is about rage at cis men, but it is also about trans joy and triumph. Most importantly, it is about finding one's own strength to fight for a life that is worth living.

This book was lowkey cheesy, full of tropes, included a lot of infodumping..and I was obsessed with it. Seriously, I don’t usually listen to audiobooks and I got to the point where I listened to parts of this book on Spotify because I couldn’t actively be reading my physical copy in the moment but I also could not put it down. I have literally never thought that a book would make me feel like I wanted to giggle and kick my feet, but this book made me feel that way. It was a cozy blanket wrapped around me (not to say that the book itself was cozy at all, but just the way it made me feel) as I read it.

Why did I love this book so much?

Honestly, I don’t really know why this book hit so good for me, but it did. I think it did a couple different things really well that are the main things that I care about in books and fiction. First, the worldbuilding. Like I mentioned, there was a lot of infodumping in this book that it got a little exasperating at times. There were a million names that were so confusing because some of them were fairly similar that I ended up looking up a list of characters online and studying them so that I could remember who was who. And yet, this book essentially takes something like Game of Thrones as its inspiration and plays with it. From the political system to politics, I felt immersed. The city of Kair Toren was described in such a way that I felt like I was there. Could the information have been a little bit better disseminated? Sure, of course. I wish we understood a bit more about how the magic worked in this world. But overall, adored how closely tied the worldbuilding was to the plot.

Speaking of the plot, it was essentially every terrible fanfic I’ve ever read in middle school about people ending up in [insert fandom world here], but original. I adored the way that Maggie set about trying to change the fate of Kair Toren using just her brain, wit, and knowledge of the book series that she was obsessed with. Don’t we all wish we could end up in a fantasy world of our favorite books and help our favorite characters out? (I mean, actually I would probably die, but you get the point).

The authors took familiar tropes and played with them, and I loved it. Sometimes, you just want a book where you immediately recognize the rogue with the heart of gold, or the deep, dark, and mysterious duke whom everyone fears, or the no-nonsense but secretly kindhearted madam who runs the local high-end brothel. You want the convoluted political scheming and the assassination and the forced attending of a fancy ball. This book had all of it, and it was cheesy and smart and perfect when it all comes together.

(Also, what was that cliffy? I’m going to die waiting for the next book!!!)

And the characters were so fun. I’m not even normally a romantasy reader, but the romance made up so little of the plot that I loved what I did get of it. Give me some grumpy x sunshine and I will be happy. There was so much chemistry between the characters, and I don’t just mean romantically. Give me all the found family! Give me the friendship between Maggie and Will/Lute and the parental way that she took care of Kaiden and Clover. Give me the way that Gort interacted with his sons and the way that Solentine takes care of his family with his assassin’s guild. Each character was written as a full person, not just the main characters, and I grew to love them all as much as Maggie clearly did.

I don’t really want to talk too much about the budding romance just because of spoilers, but it’s hot but with no spice (yet, it’s clearly going to build up to it in the next book or two) with all the yearning on both sides. There’s a lot of hurt/comfort, diving in and then pulling away, and everything else I want in a good romance. Maggie refuses to let herself be taken advantage of, and she is cautious. She won’t let herself fall for someone without knowing that it will be an equal relationship—and right now, she can’t be sure of that. I appreciate a romantasy where the main characters aren’t jumping into bed immediately. They’re not even in any sort of relationship at all in the book, but the vibes are there and ready.

I’m going to stop talking now because I’m almost at 1k words at this point. In sum, yes, there were a few flaws. Yes, the author pulled in common memes and stupid phrases from our world that were a little jarring. Yes, I did get super confused with the clunky infodumping and the sort of awkward way that the authors described every character almost akin to a DM in a game of DND. I’m not saying this was a perfect book in any way.

But I loved it. If you ever harbored a fantasy of magically ending up in your own favorite book series, I suspect you will too.

See my Maggie the Undying series reviews:

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (#1) | here Title (#2) | to be announced/coming soon

WARNING: Do not read this review if you love this book because I know I'm very much in the minority with how I felt about it. Don't @ me if you love this book and still read this review because I have a lot of feelings lol.

This book made me so angry. That was my first reaction when I finished the book. I just sat there and seethed because what in the ever-loving bloated, pretentious, purple prose that said nothing at all did I just read? If this wasn't a book that someone lent to me, I would have set it on fire. (Not really because book burning is bad, but I might have considered flinging it out a window!)

I truly could not really tell you very much about what this book was about. I got the general jist - two enemies from opposite sides of some sort of war writing letters to each other and falling in love, but that was...about as far as I got. I couldn't tell you anything about this war or why it was happening, the setting/world-building, the way that things work in this setting, what the characters were really like, or tbh, why they even fell in love. It seemed like one of the characters suddenly decided she was in love with the other one and it just went from there. There was no believable development or buildup to it at all. I didn't care about either of the characters in any way because the authors never gave me a path to care about them. Basically, I have nothing I can really write about in review because the authors gave me nothing except for pretty words that barely made sense.

This book basically just ran on vibes rather than anything solid and I feel like the authors should have just written a poem if that's what they wanted to do rather than put this out as a story, because it barely felt like a finished novel. The last...maybe 25% of the book got a little better (which isn't saying much given how I felt about the whole thing) just because stuff actually was happening rather than just vibes. tbf, all that stuff was still written in the most pretentious way possible, but at least something happened.

As I'm writing this review, I think that maybe this book made me this angry because of how pretentious it felt. It felt like the authors were flaunting how clever and lyrical their writing was rather than focusing on writing a readable or engaging book. Clearly, most people do not agree with me on this, given the largely high ratings this book has, but I really do not get the hype at all. Overall, I was mostly confused, bored, and so ready for it to be over.