It took me longer than I would've liked to read this book, but that's just how it is when your audiobook loan only goes for so long and life is busy. But, all that to say, I did eventually finish this, and am glad I did. I've been a fan of Schwab's since I discovered ​The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in high school, and ​A Darker Shade of Magic this past year (I do still need to finish the last two books in this series). I think Schwab does a great job of building stories with layers that add to the individual levels as well as the plot overall. These layers are their own interesting subplots with their own independent characters, subpoints, and conflicts, but when they come together near the end of the entire novel in an orchestrated fashion, it makes all that independent work that much better. Case in point for this novel: Sabine, Charlotte, and Alice's individual stories, identities, and struggles with being vampires throughout different periods of time, grappling with the woes of being immortal and alone until they're not so alone (but still subjected to immorality and the passing of time). 
I hate to say that I was more interested in the first half of this book rather than the latter. I loved reading about Sabine's ambling stride through so many different time periods, world events, and geographies. She strikes me as a truly likable character in spite of the very unlikeable things she does because we as readers spend so much time with her and understand how she got to the place she ends up in. Therefore, when we switched over to more spotlight on Charlotte, I was still intrigued to see how her circumstance would inevitably tangle with Sabine's. Alice, on the other hand, held the storyline I had the least interest in, despite seeming to be framed as the main character. I get why she seems to have the "last stand" among the ensemble, but I just wasn't as drawn in to her backstory as I was the other two. This may be why the novel's ending fell a little flat for me, focused on Alice and her decisions as it was. I also attribute having to take a long break in between starting and finishing this story to some of my developed disinterest.
Overall, I can definitely recommend this read to anyone looking for something that frames vampires within historical and modern contexts, exploring the concepts of immortality, hunger/fulfillment, and letting someone you love go for their own sake along the way.

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Some of my favorite quotes from ​Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil:

"'One can be alone without feeling lonely,'” she muses. 'One can feel lonely without being alone.'"

"And it drives her mad, the idea that the shape of her body determines the shape her life must take. That her beauty is something she is expected to pass on instead of keep."

"And here is the awful thing about belief. It is a current, like compulsion. Hard to forge when it goes against your will, but easy enough when it carries you the way you want to go."

"From that moment on she insisted she would only read romance, as if love and horror could not go hand-in-hand."

It was kind of a trip to read this alongside the audiobook version of Riley Sager's The Only One Left (what were the odds I choose two very differently genred books with an infamous older woman telling a younger woman their life story?), but I really liked this quite a lot. Before I began reading, a dear friend of mine who'd already read it herself told me she wanted to discuss what genre I thought the book really was. Now, I cannot confidently say I know. I think it sits somewhere between literary fiction and traditional contemporary romance. And I really like that! This is different for Emily Henry, and I think it works well overall! That same dear friend likened the structure of this novel to a Taylor Jenkins Reid novel, and now I can't unsee it. I think Henry's done her own sort of attempt at telling a story within a story that all ties up together (more or less).
I really loved the few moments dedicated to Alice and Hayden's inner thoughts concerning the research and writing process, because they get so incredibly close to my attempts at verbalizing how vast and scary and amazing it feels (see the quotes below). I was very much here for the two writers falling in love trope, too. Because of course it's grumpy/sunshine, and they're both attracted to each other but aiming for the same highly coveted autobiography job, so have to put their chemistry "on pause." I also loved the descriptions of a hot and sticky Georgia summer on a little island/peninsula. While I think the ambience was working very well throughout this entire story (I highly relate to Alice's coffee addiction as well), some parts of the plot felt a bit rushed and loosely tied. For instance (without direct spoilers): 1) the stuff with Captain Cecil, 2) what maybe could've been much more profound bonding stuff between Alice and her mom, and 3) Margaret's "grand reveal" near the very end. I have to say I was more interested in Alice and Hayden's through line than Margaret's retold life story, and if Emily Henry was going for more of a direct lit fic focus with this project, she sort of lost me. I applaud her all the same for trying something off her beaten path, considering she's walking her particular path quite well.



Some of my favorite quotes from ​Great Big Beautiful Life:

"'It'll be lonely here without you,' he says matter-of-factly, and I try not to melt into the sand, where the goop of my former body would never be entirely recovered."

"Maybe truth can't be whittled out of a pile of research but instead has to be built from all of it, no spare pieces left behind, absolutely nothing discarded."

"I've written stuff I'm really proud of that hardly anyone read. I've written stuff I'm proud of that no one liked. That doesn't mean it didn't deserve to be written."

"With writing, you could always add more. More, more, more until you got to the heart of a thing, and after that, you could chip away the excess."

"'Would you like to go to dinner with me?' he asked, and she would. She would like to go to dinner, dessert, bed, breakfast, lunch, and dinner again with him."

I'm really happy that I decided to keep reading past the first 100 pages of this novel. They had me kind of unsure if I was going to fall headfirst into the budding romance and extended worldbuilding of one of my favorite duologies. But I really grasp how these first 100 pages have to establish the beautiful complexities of this rich world steeped in mystic gods, fragile mortals, and their tentative coexistence.
I feel like my enduring impression of this story as a whole keeps returning to  how quietly atmospheric the writing style is. The most simplistic of descriptions, from tree leaves to the scent of mist, felt so tangible for me as a reader in a really refreshing way. I knew I was going to at least partially love this book because I love the way Rebecca Ross spins her tales of romance and fantasy and intrigue, but wow, I really loved how this entire tapestry of a story came together. I'm so impressed by the variety of climaxes and denouements, which I feel captures the essence of her immortal characters so well. Having a good amount of the action surround the attempted storm on Wyndrift really grounded the narrative for me. I'm also so impressed by the intricacies of the magic system, how gods can be slain and magic conquered or stolen. From the get go, these stakes are built and endure. 
I also loved slowly learning about how the mortal world functions with a knowledge of the immortal world and way of living. The constant strife and contrast of Matilda and Victor's mortal timeline relationship displayed the kind of yearning and pining I live to read! I especially love how gentle of a masculine character Victor is. He really strikes me as a well written love interest as well as individual main character. While Matilda strikes me as more of an aloof enigma, though she has plenty of moments of beautiful humanity, I think it's fitting for her to feel harder to fit into a mold, being a goddess.
Additionally, having only subtle connections to the original duology content seen in Divine Rivals and Ruthless Vows made this novel, its setting, characters, and meaningful story feel appropriately separate from the events of the aforementioned core series. In other words, I would've been a bit disappointed if this novel felt like it was riding on the familiarity of its predecessors, but that was happily not the case.
I chuckled, set the book aside to stare at the wall, and cried bittersweet tears, each in turn. This book is beautiful.




Some of my favorite quotes from Wild Reverence:
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"My home is your home. My arms are a haven for you to rest. My last name is yours if you desire it. I will love you to my grave, and even beyond it, when the mists welcome me, when I am hopefully very old and gray and grouchy and have spent the seasons beside you when you are here and dreaming of you when you are gone."

"But I think you know that the soul can be found in words, and words within the soul. The two reflect each other in the sky, do they not?"

"I was weak for her alone, and I wanted her to know it. I did not want to keep anything from her."