by Lauren D Fulter

YA Fantasy, 2020 by Lucy Knoell, 555 Pages 

What I Didn’t Like:

• Repetition. Ideas, phrases, and dialogue are often repeated making the book feel longer and more cumbersome than it needed to be. 
• Some awkward phrasing. Upon a second read most sentences were technically correct but just weren’t how people normally speak, which made them awkward. 
• The world building needed more information up front, which I almost never say. Trying to get the names of all of these different races (for lack of a better word) as they are learned is a lot. 

What I Did Like:

• Beautiful cover. This won’t really affect my rating since it’s not about the book, but I love this I’ll cover! 
• Ray’s storyline held my attention the most. He’s intriguing even though he’s not the main character and I think he carries some of the most interesting beats of the plot.
• The back end of the book opened some interesting plot lines that promise some cool stuff coming in book 2.

Who Should Read This One:

• Fans of fantasy stories with big casts who don’t mind learning information about the world slowly and are willing to commit to a series may like this more than I did.

My Rating: 2 Stars

• Repetition, errors, and awkward phrasing made this hard for me to enjoy.