I’ve known about this book for a long time but never really looked into it more deeply until I participated in the bingo card challenge from the r/fantasy on reddit. I read this book to fulfill the prompt: book set entirely in the forest.
I felt the story was very quick moving and it kept me very engaged. The audiobook was a great format to experience it through. The narrator did sound the characters a bit younger then I would have thought they would sound, so if that is something that bothers you, skip it.
The strongest point of this book is the magic system for sure. If you are a reader that needs a well fleshed out characters (main and side characters) that come of the page - maybe try a few chapters before buying the book. Even though I liked exploring the world through their view, they aren't the most compelling part of the story for me. The first third of the book makes a lot of time jumps. The focus is definitely on the world and the two main characters.
The ending was a bit predictable but I didn't see it going as dark as it did. I heard that the other books in the series expand the world even more to the other regions. Hoping to get to the sequel by the end of the year while it still fresh in my memory. This could possibly be a new comfort-read author for me.