Well, it’s finally time for those wedding bells to chime! Off to Canada for the wedding (it’s the best place to get married without causing too much of a diplomatic incident), Toby and Tybalt discover that as per usual, their lives are never easy. Because before they get to the altar, they have to stop someone from assassinating Quentin’s parents and seizing the High Kingdom. Can’t Toby go one day without having to stab someone or bleed on whatever clothing she’s wearing?
I loved this book, but I felt for Toby in the beginning; I would seriously resent not finding out that I was getting married in three days until I had to leave to get to the location. I know Toby gave up having a hand in the planning process, but that still feels a little bit “gee, and you wonder why Toby has trust issues”?
Are you okay?” he asked, in a small voice. “I don’t know,” I said. “Apparently, my entire family has been conspiring to abduct me to Canada because I can’t be trusted to know the date of my own damn wedding. So I’m feeling a little left out and a little disrespected and a lot like I need to go lie down in my bed or stand in a hot shower until I stop wanting to stab you all.” “We don’t heal the way you do,” said Dean. “Hence the restraint,” I said, through gritted teeth.
The attempted coup is engaging, and keeps your attention for the majority of the book, even if it means that there are large swathes of time that Toby and Tybalt are in completely different parts of the palace. A lot of Luidheag, which is good; but that means her house guest, who was introduced in the last book, is also present a lot, which is bad. It’s great they’re here, but can they go somewhere else and very quickly?
At least in the end the wedding actually goes off! Sure, there’s blood and stabbing and interruptions, but the Luidheag performing the ceremony more than makes up for any of the drama that comes before. And no Luna or Amandine, which are checks in the plus column! (Seriously, with the next book being what it is, I will take any positive I can get at this point.)
This is a book of hellos and goodbyes: Toby says in some ways goodbye to Sylvester and Gillian, yet says hello to Simon fully. August meanwhile, likes Gillian (not sure if I agree, but that’s me). Yes, I will admit that Gillian wanting to know Toby outside of “Miranda’s” opinion is great, but how she announces this is just…oof. Quentin finally snapping at his parents was a long time coming; the fact that his mother takes it better than his father isn’t surprising, just sad.Julie making a reappearance after several books is great, and I’m glad the old friendship group of Julie, Kerry, Toby, and Stacy is back together and nothing is ever going to break it. Ever. No way, no how. Not even Stacy going strangely angry at Cassandra and Walther dating. Odd, but that’s just being an overprotective mother, right?
Favorite Quotes:
- Sometimes I think being May must be deeply confusing. And then I remember that being me is deeply confusing, and amend that to “being a person” is deeply confusing, and move on.
- I wasn’t looking to make myself angry. I was trying to triangulate how angry I should be. There’s a difference. Honest, there’s a difference.
- Faerie’s relationship to physics is often casual at best, and sometimes it consists of Faerie promising to call when physics knows it never will.
- The rot at the root isn’t the revolution, it’s the ruler who refuses to resign. King-breaking is a symptom of sickness, not the cause.
- Yes, but where’s the fun in talking like normal people?” asked Aethlin. “Half the time I’m a King of Faerie. The other half, I’m standing in line at Tim Hortons and some asshole in a hockey uniform has just taken the last sour cream glazed. We have to wallow in the aesthetic when we get the chance.
- More, is there anyone in Faerie who doesn’t need therapy?
- King Shallcross’s men had attempted to shoot us all to death. They’d mostly failed, succeeding only in shooting us to severe annoyance.
- lurching from crisis to crisis like some sort of wind-up disaster mannequin
- I wouldn’t have placed my bet on today. And that’s okay. We live in stories, but we’re not stories, and sometimes the best endings are the ones no one sees coming.
- That was all I ever wanted from her, or from anyone, really. For them to see that I was hurting myself on their behalf, and not let them pretend they had no part in it.
- Don’t be sarcastic,” I said, elbowing him lightly in the side. “I know it’s your primary means of communication, but that doesn’t make it appropriate right now.
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He wasn’t used to this sort of thing, not having been around long enough to become acclimated to the level of casual chaos that the rest of us live with on a daily basis.
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I just got up. Breakfast, then horrifying drama.” Always horrifying drama. In this house, horrifying drama is never a sometimes food.
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It’s that everyone matters. The alternative is a world where no one matters, and since I know that isn’t true, “everyone” is the only option we have left.
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Everyone has their own idea of what makes a happy ending.