Okay, so do you guys remember when I read Shadow and Bone and I thought the plot was kinda cool, I liked the side characters, I liked the heroine - I got on board with her weird morality and can-do attitude - but I fucking hated Mal? (I'm writing this on my phone and iOS 10 actually just autocorrected 'Mal' to 'anal' which is basically the gist of it.) Well guess what. 
 Round two. Motherfucking Montgomery. 
 This tool. THIS guy. I swear to fucking god. I actually loved Juliet, because she spoke to me and I related to her and she was proactive and she deeply valued her friendship with another woman who was very different than her, but all of it is overshadowed by her completely bewildering infatuation with Montgomery. 
 He is the absolute worst character in this book. He was agonising to read about. A little piece of me died every time he was mentioned. And he's so unnecessary; this book is so incredibly original (and extremely well-written, paced beautifully and very deft in its retelling of the 'classic' it's based on) but Montgomery is the typical childhood friend turned bland lover that we've seen about 16,000 times before in YA. There is nothing convincing about his feelings about Juliet or about her love for him. And it sullied my feelings for Juliet, because she was smart and sharp and sometimes brutal, but she let herself fall in stupid love with this dumb asshole. Juliet, pull your fucking self together! Fuck. 
 In some ways, this book belongs to Edward; he is far and away the most captivating character. I loved him. He was dark and weird and sad, and I related to him, as strange as that sounds. He got me right in the feels, guys. The revelation concerning Juliet's nature felt a little flat to me - like, I was surprised, sure, but it didn't feel as shocking as I think it was meant to. But Edward? By god, chaps! That one knocked me right off my chair! 
 This book was a nice deviation from your typical Victorian fare: there's nothing stuffy or boring about 
 it, and I fucking hate the Victorians because they're stuffy and boring. I can't stand them. But this book feels...fresh. It feels sprightly and inspired and innovative. I like that it's morally grey and that its heroine has the capacity to be an incredibly kind person but also very ruthless as well. Juliet really, really grabbed me, guys. (Except when she was hanging around that fucking cock Montgomery. What a stupid prick. I want to punch his fugly face.) 
 I moan, I bitch, I complain. I kid, too. This was actually an incredibly enjoyable read. Dark and twisty and not afraid to be itself. I seriously admire the author for reinventing not only a less well-known 'classic' but also for making it completely her own and by taking thematic risks. This book is not afraid to be gory and weird, and it doesn't shy away from brutality, or from questioning substantial themes like morality and humanity and the blurred lines of family, particular the unfathomable complexity of a father-daughter relationship. It was a nice surprise for me. 
 So yeah. It was nice. 
 Except for fucking Montgomery. Fuck off, Montgomery.