Stiletto

You know what is similar to this book (and The Rook)? When in Men in Black Will Smith is taken to the HQ by Tommy Lee Jones and you see all the aliens in the background being all kinds of crazy. We will never ever get to see them properly, but they are there in the background to make the world feel richer and quirkier and more interesting.
This whole series is that. We get mentions of old stories, little snippets of characters with interesting abilities, all that. Aaaand they barely ever do ANYTHING. It really feels like Mr. O'Malley had these moments of “yeaaah, imagine a person who can solidify light, that would be kinda badass” at 3am after 4 hours of watching random Youtube stuff, but then not really utilising the ideas.

What did we have instead? After centuries of fear of each other, the Checquy and the Grafters decide to form an alliance, even though the former is a bunch of random people born supernatural, while the latter is the product of super scientists augmenting everything about themselves. But you can't have those big things without some people being against it, so a terrorist group is trying to smash everything.
The two protagonists are a Grafter woman and a Checquy pawn serving as her bodyguard, both young chicks with a kinda sassy attitude. They get tangled in the crazy, of course.

Aaaand that is my issue. Odette (Grafter) and Felicity (Checquy) are just... not that interesting. They are kind of giddy and awkward, which makes me doubt that organisations with such huge history, engaged in history changing negotiations would screw around with absolutely inexperienced little baby fetuses.
They also wouldn't send important diplomats in for super unpredictable, dangerous situations just for the lulz, which they actually did MULTIPLE TIMES. Ridiculous!

Mr. O'Malley's humour comes off weird as well. Don't get me wrong, I did laugh, but he can only do one kind of jokes. Said my old men, young women, Belgians, English, ANYONE. I'm sorry, but that is just not how humour works. It's especially frustrating when we have two protagonists with approximately the same age and virtually indistinguishable inner workings. Maybe it was to show how the two organisations are fundamentally really similar, but switching between the point of views provided no contrast at all. Not pleased with it.

One moment was powerful, though. Once we can read the story of how kids at the Checquy school the older kids keep telling the younger ones a story, one about the time when the Grafters attacked them centuries ago, forcing even the kids to fight back. How supernatural kids need to be prepared to do fighting an unknown, horrible threat at any moment and that is just what they have to live with. That part was pretty damn lovely.

I can't help feeling that this series could have been better. For some reason why keep being stuck with not too interesting characters who are just... adequate, instead of being fabulous, which pisses me off because WE DO have great, interesting, vibrant ones there. Right there. In... the background. If anything, in this book we see even less of the mind splitting twin entity, awesome vampire guy, dream walking boss lady. So I'm not satisfied.

If another book comes out, I will most likely pick it up. Probably not shrieking in ecstasy, going crazy about it and breaking limbs to fight myself through a horde of rabid beasts to get it, but it's fine for some entertainment.