While I was drawn into this book for its unique and gripping premise, enjoyed aspects of the magic system, and felt that there were a couple of really cool scenes, overall it fell flat for me and just felt underdeveloped. To start with what I did enjoy, again, I really think this book's greatest strength is its premise in and of itself--the threat of the ever-rising dark tide is both visually evocative and creates a lot of good tension, and this city build up out of the sea feels unique and magical! I also liked the use of witches themselves within the text--they always felt mysterious and dangerous, even as we became more familiar with them as readers. I also really enjoyed every scene in which Lina danced, those moments felt vivid and enchanting and really impactful for her character.

Still, I felt like this book overall felt like it was tackling too many different concepts while leaving some core aspects underdeveloped. While the premise of the dark tide itself was really interesting, the text also brought in elements of the myth of Tam Lin, and this whole conflict between the island and the anti-witch mainland, which all felt interesting enough to stand on their own and didn't necessarily mesh together well. Because there were so many different elements at play, each one felt a little shallow. My biggest issue is that the romance itself felt underdeveloped, especially compared to how much the blurb for The Dark Tide really emphasizes this aspect. I really needed literally twice as many scenes between Lina and Eva to be convinced of their romance, especially to the point that

Eva risking her entire island and repeating the same mistake as her sister for Lina's sake would make sense.

Again, like many of my criticisms of this book, it really felt like we just hit the surface of this romance, but the pace of the book moved too fast for me to really get as deep into it as I wanted, especially for the strong narrative impact it was meant to have. Finally, I just wish that Lina and Eva both had more agency and were really the driving forces of their own story, instead of the men around them. I loved the opening scene of the book where Lina literally locks her brother in a room to keep him safe and found that a really good moment for her character, but, whoops, he escapes! From there, it really felt like she was chasing after him and Thomas especially more than anything else. In Eva's case, it was really frustrating that

so much of the climax of her arc wasn't even about her making her own choices so much as her just desperately responding to the betrayal of her right-hand man (I literally don't even remember his name, he didn't even leave an impact on me besides being so obviously suspicious right from the beginning).

Neither of the girls, despite being the protagonists, felt like the primary drivers of the story and Lina especially felt like all of her motivations were based on the men around her rather than her own goals and wants, and I felt like the book's themes were weaker for it. Ultimately, while this book had a really interesting premise and some strong moments, I really felt like it needed a stronger focus, a slower pace, and overall just a little bit more development to give that premise its full potential.