Actual Rating: 3.5 
 I absolutely adored The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and so I proceeded on to the next book in the series: this one. Needless to say, I was a bit underwhelmed. I was expecting so much from this book. But it only got a 3.5 from me. 
 The plot was interesting yet I didn't really like it all too much. I found the book dull and uninteresting for the most part, and it was really until the late middle where it started to hit its stride. There was no action and that part annoyed me a lot. It started to feel like it was just full of random characters and circumstances and dialogue. 
 I think the reason why I didn't quite like this book so much as I did for the first was because Valente made her writing style even more confusing. I'm quite new to Valente's work, and in this book, the writing style seemed even more confusing than in TGWCF. Unfortunately, the pace was much slower than in TGWCF, so it didn't make it easy to transition. 
 Speaking of the pace, it slowed down quite a lot in this book. Like I said, the book seemed to be full of random things. 
 Also, I hated how there were barely any recurring characters in this book from TGWCF that stayed around for long. I get that September is in Fairyland-Below and of course she isn't going to find many friends down there, but the whole entire book I was just waiting for Ell or Saturday or even Gleam to show up and be September's partner for at least two chapters. 
 I think the redeeming point of this book was the last 50 pages or so. I found the last 50 pages to be really exciting and intriguing. The plot twist was fantastic. And the ending in general was just really good. So, if you don't feel that good about this book, stick around until the ending. 
 Another redeeming point were the new characters introduced. They were different and quirky and resembled shadows a lot. Halloween seemed like the "dark side" of September, and Ell and Saturday's shadows were much different from their normal selves. I found it really refreshing, although I didn't really like all of the shadows sometimes. 
 So, there's that. I'm really hoping that The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two is much better than this one. Because if not, I'm going to lose faith in this series.