Anne

I've been hearing about his book for a while and I was a bit disappointed to be honest. I was missing some depth in the book, while the worldbuilding was very interesting, the characters fell flat to me. The concept of Antari was interesting, but the actual magic was not that exciting. I was excited about Kell at first, but then it turned out he's quite the dumbass and not actually as powerful as I expected. I did not particularly care for Lila or their relationship, orphan thief who wants power/to be free is one I've seen often and she did not have a lot of other interesting traits. The relationship that seemed to be blossoming between Kell and Lila felt a bit forced. I did like Rhy, I liked his connection to Kell and struggle with being the crown prince.

Not sure yet if I'll continue with book 2, I've heard it gets better and I'm still somewhat curious, but his book did not draw me in as much as I'd hoped.

Loved this book, really liked the cozy, kinda fairy tale vibe. Great characters, loved them all, especially the main character, she was so relatable and fun to read about. I also really enjoyed the narrator I didn't know what I was getting into, so discovering Hoid is telling the story was so much fun!. Really excited to get the hardcover soon and reread it!

Fun, interesting story and characters, definitely recommend.

Can be read as a standalone if you don't mind a somewhat open ending.(I'm saying because I didn't enjoy book 2 as much)

This book was not really what I expected, I expected dark academia, but it was more of a dark mystery or something, so that might have influenced my experience a bit.. A lot of people seem to love this book, so maybe I was just not in the right headspace or expecting something too different, but it just wasn't for me. I didn't dislike the book, but it was just not quite there for me. I feel like there were a lot of unnecessary elements (the rivalry between the 2 countries and the north and south, also the drowning was mentioned a decent amount, but it didn't really feel like part of the story for me) that kind of distracted from the main themes that I was really interested in. I also did not love the romantic relationship, I did not feel like they had a lot of chemistry and it seemed to move quite quick and sudden, especially considering Effy's traumatic past. I thought the sex scene was kind of out of place as well, like they had been worrying about the storm (and the second drowning?) and having only a small amount of time to get out and then just decided that that was the right time for a quicky and a nap? Really?

I've given it a star rating, but I'm not sure if that accurately reflects the book. Of course that's always difficult, but I'm struggling to rate this book in particular. I think this was a well-written book, but it's marketed the wrong way, which influenced my reading experience a lot. I went into this expecting a romcom-like book, it's marketed as a romance and tagged as funny or happy in most places, but that's not what the book is about. As a story about a woman navigating her life with a mother with dementia and how that's impacting her and her whole family it's doing a great job with a bonus of some romance. But I picked this up because I wanted to read a fun romance book and then the mood is just not what I expected. For most of this book everyone is pretty miserable, the ending is as sweet as it can be in this situation, but still bittersweet. It's a good book, but know it's more about a complex sickness and family situation then a light sweet romance as the description implies.

(also could have done without the Rhysand comparisons)