Knowing what I do about this story and these characters it shouldn't have surprised me at all that this book was darker than Six of Crows. And yet it did. I mean hands getting chopped off and people dying and it's just well it's a little dark.
It's also not quite as clever as one would hope. Because the whole third act I didn't trust because I knew there was something else going on, expecting that everything wasn't as it appeared and therefore not surprised with the reveal.
And yet, falling short of expectations doesn't make it a bad book. It's still got really great characters. And it has Nikolai! That's almost enough right there. Still, I simply liked the first one better.
REREAD: The thing I realize on reread is that the twists are fun but since they're expected there were parts of the story I wanted to skip through to get to the parts I was looking forward to. And part of that is that it focuses a little more on characters I find less interesting. It seems like just a bit too much book for what it needed to be. And I just kept waiting for the part with Nikolai and I realize it’s not his story, but I still wanted more. Plus Matthias really didn't need to die. It takes its time to end well and not rush through the resolution which I appreciate.