This is just another example of how my tastes have changed and of why I need a did not finish/gave up on shelf. Don't get me wrong, I love the characters and I guess I kinda love the plot? But I just couldn't get into this one. My tastes and etc have matured since reading Iron Thorn and I just....couldn't do it. I mean, I used to write like this author writes, which is to say that the author writes like a fifteen-year-old. Which, I mean, some 15 year olds can write fucking well, man. I was not one of them. The author tries too hard, I 'spose, which was my problem with Black City, except any hype this book gets is perhaps well-deserved, it just wasn't my thing anymore.

 

I skimmed like insane because I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to read it, and I wanted to enjoy it, but I was just so tired and exhausted and sick of it and they say not to waste your time reading shit you don't wanna read so I stopped. Plus I just couldn't fucking do it.

 

The constant repeating of information was endearing at first and then became unbearably annoying. I read about sixty pages and Aoife mentioned at least ten times how she needed to get her mother back and blah blah blah, and they had the same conversations multiple times, and this book probably coulda been squashed down to two hundred pages, no joke. Also she used the same similes over and over, sometimes within the same pages and several times within the same chapter, as when they were in Windhaven and the use of "as if Windhaven was plummeting". 

 

The journal entries added absolutely nothing to the story whatsoever.

 

TOO MUCH INNER MONOLOGUE/REFLECTION. CHRIST.

 

So basically this is an amateurish book and I could see things that I liked and would have thoroughly enjoyed a couple years ago but they didn't do anything for me now and therefore I cannot rate this book high. I enjoyed it at a one-star level but considering I can see the good things about it and know I would've loved it before, I deemed it was two stars because, well, it is good, I guess. For other people, at least.

 

I'm sorry this is such a dumb review but I am tired as shit right now. I'd like to say one last thing: I adore the characters. They're all unique, and Dean is amazing and Cal is amazing and EVERYONE IS AMAZING I WISH I COULD'VE LOVED THIS THE WAY THE OLD ME WOULD HAVE.

 

GOODBYE.

When this series began, Aoife was a well-behaved engineering student. Her mother was mad, her brother was also mad and possibly a traitor, and necrovirus monsters surrounded Lovecraft City, and but Aoife just wanted to keep her head down and her mind clear long enough to graduate and work with engines. But then her brother sent a mysterious message, calling Aoife out of safety and on the run. Since then, she discovered that the necrovirus is really magic and that she herself has fairy blood, and shortly thereafter destroyed the barriers keeping the fey and human worlds separate. Now Aoife is in more danger than ever.

Aoife's universe is a fascinating mixture of steampunk, malevolent fairies, and magical forces so much more powerful than us that they would rip our brains apart if we so much as thought of them. It's fab! Aoife herself is wonderfully complex. That said, I did enjoy this, but less so than the first book. The plot is so convoluted, and Aoife's goals change so often, that by the end I was pretty tired of it.

★★★★½Slipping back into this utterly captivating world has been long – much too long – overdue. Kittredge’s otherworldly yet familiar Steampunk creation is tragic, broken, dark and sinister, while it is also bewitching, complex, and mysterious. Equally captivating is Aoife’s character and her growth since first meeting her in The Iron Thorn. She’s always balked a little at the repressive, submissive role her society has forced her into, but Tremaine’s manipulation of her which results in the destruction of Lovecraft’s engine has become the catalyst for some major realizations and changes for Aoife. In The Nightmare Garden, she’s a bit older and wiser, more discerning, less trusting, more independent, less interested in fulfilling society’s ideals of womanhood, and more focused on righting her wrongs, saving her family and friends, and figuring out her place in the larger picture, but still a little reckless. As for everything else, except for a slight lull in the middle, the story is extremely fast-moving and very exciting, the romance (i.e. – Dean) was as fantastic as ever… and that ending! Be still my heart and say it ain’t so! {wink}

**3 1/2 stars**

I don't know whether to be pissed off with the turn this story has taken or impressed. Took me awhile to slug through the audio, but not because of the audiobook itself. My interest just waxed and waned quite a bit throughout the story, and it seemed long and endless at times. I enjoyed [b:The Iron Thorn|6234910|The Iron Thorn (Iron Codex, #1)|Caitlin Kittredge|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320539106s/6234910.jpg|6417578] much more.

It was mostly enjoyable though I fear we may be heading into too stupid to live territory with the protagonist. She tries to make everything right but because she doesn't listen to anyone else she just makes everything worse.

It was nice to meet her dad again.

OTOH, she also falls under the "more special than special" category which is really starting to annoy me.