Very, very, very excellent book. Longer than some of the previous, which was a good thing, and the pace was very good.

Whoa.

A nice comeback from the previous novel. I think I could go without every single female character being a potential sexual partner for Harry. The ending was exciting because it leaves a lot of material and uncharted territory to explore in the next installment. I do feel as though this series needs to wrap up in the near future, but we'll see how long the "Harry is slowly losing his mind" storyline gets dragged out.

Another fine Dresden book...still doing the wrong thing but for the right reasons.

There is so much I love about this book series:

Harry Dresden has the best attitude of any main character of any long-running book series. He never ever says "you know, I just can't handle any more." No matter how bad things get, he is willing to add more to his plate. And he keeps his sense of humor. And he keeps his sense of honor. His friends are all such good people, too; I totally enjoying listening to them and watching them. Perseverance is Harry's greatest strength, and loyalty is his next greatest; these are two of my favorite character traits.

Things are never as they seem. Even the things behind the appearance of things usually turn out to be the next level of deception in an onion of misdirectional layers. The surprises never cease. And no matter how deeply in danger it seems that Harry has gotten this time, there is always something new that turns his way.... usually at some insanely high cost to him. How does Jim Butcher keep up this pace through so many books? Not just keep it up... I mean, he is getting better and better at it.

The humor is the best. Jim Butcher uses so many cultural references for his jokes... stuff that totally appeals to the geek in me.

I don't want to accidentally reveal anything that happens in this specific book, but I will say that the delicate machinery of how the the plot is revealed is incredible and complex and amazing and compelling. How many times did I have everything understood, only to find that a little more information gave me the new real picture? Amazing.

I was so happy to have a weekend of being sick so that I had an excuse to read and sleep and then read more.

I've mentioned in a couple of my previous reviews that I do not like Jim Butcher's take on fairy lore - I find it formulaic, paint-by-numbers, and dull.
That said, I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed the plot of this one, being that it's chock-a-block full of fairies. Butcher added more lore and made the fairies even more of malicious and conniving bitches than the previous ventures, which I admit was fun. I liked the outsiders, and I liked how everything panned out at the end - very exciting, interesting, and setting up for the next book!

Fair warning, those of you already annoyed with Jim Butcher's (and therefore Harry Dresden's) perpetual issues with the Male Gaze - thanks to being [spoiler]the new Winter Knight[/spoiler] Harry is no longer JUST an objectifying sexist, he's also now got an inner monologue that belongs to an unrepentant rapist. Yes, really. [spoiler]In his defense, he does fight it and he doesn't rape anyone. In this book, anyways, haven't read the next one yet.[/spoiler] So if that's been an issue for you in the previous books, tread lightly here.

Yeah... Dresden jumped the shark at Ghost Story. Nothing is resolved in this book. Spoilers! Molly is made a victim yet again. They spend the whole book says he should see his daughter. Even the climax where Mab is faced her daughter who has become a monster because her mother ignored her... And then he still doesn't see his little girl! I'm done, no more Dresden.

The ending of this was phenomenal. I think Butcher is second to Sanderson for satisfying avalanche endings.

Oh, wow. I was able to force myself to spread this out over two weeks, because it's not often I get new Jim Butcher into my hands anymore and I wanted to make sure it lasted for all it could. It was super, super hard to spread this one out. Typical of the series, this moves fairly fast and is pretty action-packed (even Harry's "healing time" at the beginning is exciting. Poor man!) and it's incredibly hard to put down.

I loved the way the new twists of the series are working to fit in with what the series had been up until the aptly-named Changes. This series has morphed into something quite different than it started out as, but it's still at its heart an investigative noir set in an urban fantasy universe. Plus, this has Harry struggling more with his darker nature, which is something that's always been a factor in the series but it's definitely coming more to the fore-ground in here.

The ending was pretty fabulous, as well. Thankfully it's not the huge giant cliffhanger like the last two have felt, but I was not expecting more game-changing twists this soon after Changes and Ghost Story. Just...man. Butcher knows how to really get me, and the wait for the next book is going to be really hard.

EDIT// still weird about the molly thing though
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Can I give this more than five stars? Definitely my favorite book in the series so far. Not because it took 14 books to get good, but because this one just superseded all the magnificence that came before. Plus, faeries everywhere.