I was lucky enough to win a copy of this via Goodreads. 
 I really loved the first book, and it was going to be a hard act to follow and so it proved. I think the first book had a certain charm that this book just never captured and it was so unrelentingly bleak, and the humour felt so forced (I love Zuzana and Mik, but their inclusion felt like they had to be there just to have something light in the book) that it just missed out a bit. 
 I think if it had just been the constant war, or the angst between Akiva and Karou, or the dumb hints at the cursed lazy ~love triangle, or Karou's hypocrisy, or the POV's of people I don't care about I would have been able to love the book but as it was all of these, it was tough to get into. The parts I loved most were the parts where we were focused on the angels - I found Akiva, Hazael (oh Hazael :() and Liraz so much more endearing and enthralling than Karou and her demon clan. I think it was because we saw them change, accept and try and 'be better', whereas even at the end, Karou was grasping onto the hypocrisy that what she did (building a never ending army to go slaughter angels) was any better and she was so cruel to Akiva at times that it was actually pretty hard to read. Still, she is 18 (although she has memories of her demon life too, so age isn't really a valid excuse) and everyone is allowed a mopey book - all will be forgiven unless she decides that she has to hook up with Ziri/Thiago in some weird 'for the good of our people' nonsense in the third book. If so, the book will be thrown at the wall. ;) 
 I know it sounds like I didn't enjoy the book, but I really did and it definitely picked up in the last third of the book, I just had quite high expectations and I was a little disappointed that it fell into a few traps that annoy me in YA books. I do think the third book will be amazing and I hope that all the annoying stuff is out the way now we can get on with it at the same high level we saw in the first book.