2.5 stars. This book was okay, but I couldn't really see why it's gotten so much praise. 
 It started off fairly promising, and I loved the mysterious writing and urban fantasy setting in Prague. I really liked reading about Karou's storyline, her friends and art in Prague, and her visits and trips for Brimstone and the other monsters. Unfortunately, I started to lose interest after the...revelation that shifted the book in a different direction. (view spoiler)[ I just couldn't get into Madrigal's storyline, she was the Mary Sue of magical animal-human hybrid creature land. All those chapters about the war and her going back and forth about whether she wanted to marry Thiago...and then there was Akiva. His relationship with both Karou and Madrigal was VERY insta-love-y, and I was so bored I found myself skimming most of their interactions. (hide spoiler)] 
 One other point that really bothered me: There was a sentence in which Akiva's eyes were being described as very determined and devoid of emotion, and I can't recall the precise wording but he was described as having a "jihadist" look. It really annoyed me that this was the word the author chose to use, and although it is a very small point in the context of this book, it's a really important discussion that needs to be had in a broader discourse about how we talk about violence. The go-to synonym for "sadistic" shouldn't be "jihadist". It's little details like this that reinforce stereotypes and cognitive biases that present a small group of violent extremists as the face of a peaceful major world religion.