Melanie
Written on Oct 17, 2018
My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.
I can’t believe this series is over. I don’t want it to be. I want more time with these characters and this world. This series has been dark since it started with Menagerie and only got darker in Spectacle. So, going into this book, you know things are going to continue to be dark.
The biggest difference between this book and the previous two books, is that this one follows two timelines. We still follow Delilah and the family she has made around her with the other cryptids (people who aren’t human. Shifters, sirens, minotaurs, oracles and more. Some can pass as human and others can’t). But we also follow another family, the Essigs, that we haven’t met before. This timeline starts off in 1986, before The Reaping and follows into the years that follow.
This series has followed cryptids and how they’ve been horribly treated by humans (humans continue to fear what they don’t understand and when humans fear, they can be incredibly cruel). Humans do have reasons to fear some of these creatures. The Reaping is an event that took place in the past (like 1980s), where changeling children (fey children swapped with human children, raised by human families not knowing they were fey), went through and made the parents of the children kill all of their other kids. It was a very scary time. However, all cryptids were forced to pay for what the fey children did.
I love how this story gives us a glimpse into what life was like around the time of The Reaping. It also wraps up the story of Delilah. This has been a very dark story from the beginning and it is a very dark story in the end. I do think it wraps up the overarching series arc really well, though, I’m not exactly happy with the ending. I would’ve liked see things end differently, personally. There are a few things I still want to know. We don’t get much detail in how things play out for cryptids after the final big event or even the group that we’ve been following since book one.
If you’re looking for a dark fantasy series, I highly recommend this one, though it is not for the faint of heart. I want to say more, but at the same time, I don’t want to spoil anything.
Narration
Gabra Zackman narrates this entire series. She does a fabulous job of it. There are a wide variety of characters and age groups in the series. She does a great job selecting each voice to fit the wide variety of characters very well. Male and female characters, alike, have a voice that fits them perfectly. Her pace and tone also reflect each scene and character’s emotions.
**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.