Rosemary and Rue

Good start, but it got boring really quick. The author got the first person narrative right, the protagonist loosing 14 years of her life was an interesting concept, but all we get out of this is a broken woman, one who doesn't want anything to do with her previous life. Then she is forced to investigate the murder of her friend/enemy and needs to ask for help of an abusive old boyfriend to discover the killers.

The relationship with the murder victim is barely developed, I couldn't care less for it. The abusive old boyfriend behaves like a charming prince, even though she describes him as a pimp. Her confrontations with side characters involve more emotion then reasoning, with the other part raising their voices and telling her to get out, instead of debating facts and ideas about the current situation.

October Daye seems to be a legend among the supernaturals, but nothing is provided to prove it. She confronts a youth with a dialogue like “Do you know who I am? Tell me where he is or else...”, and that seems enough to intimidate the girl.

And it doesn't help that all the while she is walling in sorrow, having barely any skill to be useful for her current assignment, other then the fact that she keeps mentioning she is the best detective in the world, something only told, never shown. We have to take her word for that, but as far as I read it didn't check out.

The author spent too much time inside the protagonist's head in every scene, making for a very slow pacing.

Read 4:24 / 11:14 39%

The world McGuire built in this book is ethereal and violent, rife with power struggles, and very compelling. I haven't read urban fantasy prior to this, and I thought this was quite well done with strong writing.

I found some aspects of the book a bit problematic, most especially the strange relationship and power dynamic between Toby and Devin (as well as Devin's Home and the children under his “care”).

I enjoyed this book and the world. I enjoy stories of the far end look forward to delving into it further with the series.
I almost gave this a 3 star do to the number of questions I had that were just brushed by about the workings of the world. I gave it the benefit of the doubt (and the 4th star) because this is a long series and I hope these issues are addressed in later books.
Toby was an interesting character reaching maturity (well after she became and ‘adult') and I look forward to following more of her journey.