ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I absolutely hate dnf-ing ARCs, but I was having a really difficult time making it through this and had a gut feeling that my reading experience wasn't going to change as the story progressed - so it seemed unfair to continue knowing that I was most likely not the target audience.

I can tell the amount of work the author put into this, the magic system is very unique (storm magic but with actual development!), and I truly believe this is a story that would work for so many people. Unfortunately, I'm just not one of them. I think I was expecting Dark of the West meets Caraval and that's not really the case.

The circus is very much a minor part (so far, at least; that might have changed as the story went on) and the politics felt very... 2010s dystopian fantasy, to me at least. Which is fine, but not what I'm looking for. I feel like if you liked Lauren Oliver's writing style and wanted something much more developed, with magic - you'd probably love this.

Grateful for the chance to read this, even if it didn't work for me. I hope the right audience finds this book and gives it the love it deserves.