*Actually 3.5

I'm going to get my issues with this book out of the way first. This book DRAGGED for the first 200 pages. The pacing was so weird with endless amounts of nothing happening and then a short burst of action which is really just not for me. So much so that I went into a small reading slump because of this book :-) Most of the characters also felt kind of bland to me with our main duo suffering from "Oh No I'm Good At Everything" Syndrome. Benedikts character also was very weird to me. I still don't know how I'd describe him and I feel like there's a lot left with him that we didn't touch on at ALL. Also this book felt like it had chronic issues of telling not showing which is a real shame.

Onto the good!!

Chloe Gong's writing is.... *chefs kiss* magnifique! Her style of description is exactly what I love in a book and that was perhaps one of my favorite parts of reading this. The plot was really quite interesting and a fun supernatural twist on Romeo & Juliet with just enough nods to the original source material (which I really quite love). I also really loved Marshall's character he was a real highlight for me. Lastly the whole ending sequence was to die for. The last 80 or so pages were so interesting with a couple twists that I didn't see coming and enough of a cliffhanger to have me extremely interested in the sequel even though I wasn't overly thrilled with it.

Overall I have very mixed feelings about this book but I think the end definitely redeemed it more than I expected making my rating a solid 3.5