This is one book where the teenage writing style and frat boy audiobook narration style (while fitting to the character) and I did not vibe.

I think N.E. Davenport touched well on the themes of racism and misogyny. McKenna is driven and doesn’t take shit when it’s thrown at her constantly; I did find it hard to like her as our main POV. Given her immediate assumption of who killed her grandfather, I wanted more tension or dynamic in that plotline. Her internal monologue was very repetitive in writing. Chapter 12 almost made me DNF had I had a stronger backbone in abandoning books.

The avoidance of sexual terms made it sound really juvenile.

The romance in general didn’t appeal to me cause it came out of nowhere and didn’t come back again.  

Some character had 180° flips in behaviors so I’m intrigued how their character arcs pan out in the sequel if I read it. I also had a hard time believing that a country, who is stated to have had heavy casualties in their last war, would willingly kill 800+ enlistees for a specialized branch of their military every year especially with their ambitious plans. 

Overall, I thought it was okay, but the story nor the characters stood out to me in a rememberable way.I honestly kept increasing the speed of narration.