Where Dreams Descend

When I received this in my Owlcrate, I was excited to read it. The cover is gorgeous, the premise sounded great. I mean, how could a mixture of Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge be bad? Then I read it.

I show 3 stars, but it's closer to a 2 1/2 star rating. The book is a very slow starter. I can tell you all about the amazing clothes Kallia wears. But I have no idea how the magic system works. I have way more questions than answers and while I knew going in that it was book one of two, I really feel like the author wanted everything to be super mysterious and keep everyone on tenterhooks trying to figure out what was going on, to the point where she forgot that you do need to give the reader some hints. You don't have to inform your characters, but when you're 250-300 pages in and the reader still has no clue what is going on, that's a problem.

That being said, the last 100 or so pages do speed up and give you dribbles of information. I do want to know what happens next but will I remember or even care by the time the 2nd book comes out? Eh. We'll see.