Shaelinsan

it IS a beautiful book, i will not lie about it.

i had not expected romance but it was my bad for not reading the covers but then again, i like reading blindly with only a little hint from the synopsis.

for someone who disliked "smut", i don't really enjoy the scenes. i wouldn't consider it smut per se, but there are quite descriptive but very short sex scenes here and there. although, it doesn't take up much of the whole story and you'd forget about it throughout the whole plot. but i like everything clean so it did bother me.

nevertheless it is still a great book and i could see why a lot of people recommended it. Definitely not a five star but still a great, heartwarming (and very heartbreaking) book indeed.

took me a while because of real life stuff, but this one is absolutely enjoyable

its definitely on the "darker" side of a children's story (with all the killing and stuff)

i love how real Mona is and how she's not this short of girl suddenly playing hero. she started off wanting to clear things up for herself, trying to protect herself from a psychotic killer and ended up (unwillingly) became a hero because she was the only wizard available.

i also love how the duchess isn't depicted as this all-perfect leader, and how Mona's disappointment and understanding of her were both very justified.

the only downside of it was probably how i hoped for more of the Spring-green man. for a somewhat mysterious villain, he had this air of elusiveness and sinister that i had hoped for more of him and at the end of the day, he wasn't exactly the main villain. the Carex also didn't have much depth because they're basically just faceless mercenaries that attacked the city.

all and all, this one is very enjoyable to read.

having love M.L Wang's previous work and writing, i had a lot more expectation for this one. i was so excited on that first chapter, but after that? not so much. especially all the info-dumping in the first chapters for the magic system. i saw a lot of people appreciating it and i know its not for everyone, but for me i do prefer building up the knowledge as we go deeper into the book, so this one bores me in the first chapters that i had to pause reading for 3-4 days.

i love complex, flawed, very-much human characters but its very, very hard to like Sciona. she's selfish, egotistical and i very much think that even in the end, she did everything for herself. to leave a mark in the world with her own name.

yes, she felt horrible knowing they siphoned living being. yes, she tried making things better. but she wasn't a "good person" per se.

the romance is...questionable to say the least. why it happened? i have no idea. even i don't like Thomil that much. he feels like a "luke-warm" character. but Carra? badass. i love her. and she might be the only character i liked.

the ending was inevitable, i think. and it was alright.

i think i would've enjoyed this more if it was a multiple povs. seeing everything for Sciona's eyes felt very one-sided (obviously) when the problem didn't just happen because A leads to B.

so yep, this is a mild rating for me.

that was totally beautiful

i always preferred lots of chapters with shorter lengths rather than less chapters with long-assed lengths. and this one is the perfect example.

other than that, the story is beautifully written, i love love love the characters.

definitely will recommend this to everyone.

its very heavy on science but the first person pov is actually very enjoyable and its like we're going through his thought process.

i love love loveee the relationship of grace and rocky.

and surprisingly, i love the ending.

i would give this 4.25-4.5 actually. some chapters just drags on the science and it made my head hurts sometimes (lol) but other than that, great story, great characters, and very funny.