long live vampire books

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."

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