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First thing that sticks out to me about this book is the language. It's stunning. Poetic, dreamy prose and vivid imagery sets a beautiful scene for a story that spans multiple worlds. I wrote down more quotes from these pages than I have in a long time. Another positive is the flow; action moves smoothly and often, which keeps things interesting. It's tempting to say that the narration here was good, too, because it almost was... Characters were rich and believable, but worldbuilding and structure choices made it hard to fully connect. There's a story-within-the-story that takes up over 100 pages (at least a quarter of the book) and provides a lot of interesting background. Problem is that I didn't sign up for that full story. I think the journal entries could have been trimmed significantly and gotten the same point across. Plus, for realism, who writes flowery metaphors into a journal, anyway? It took a lot of time and didn't fully advance the story for me. The author also made some clunky choices in building the world and setting, particularly the time period. I don't think the early-1900s setting made much of a difference, making any mention of racism toward January particularly jarring and unnecessary. She had plenty of purpose and character depth without making overt difficulty regarding her race. Despite some complaints, this is good. I liked all of the components, some quite a lot, but I wish they had come together a little more smoothly.

Content warnings for self-harm & injury (very graphic & frequent), confinement, racism, parental neglect, animal harm (moderate), illness, guns, and assault.

Used for 2024 r/Fantasy Bingo (small-town setting, hard mode); also fits prologues & epilogues, alliterative title (hard mode), and judging a book by its cover.