I liked the playing trading card aspect of the magic system; i think my Alice in Wonderland Heart always wants to lean heavily into a playing card-based system. It reads like a YA book that should not have been placed in YA re: light sexual content and gore/cruelty, meaning that it has that YA story type feel but less teen cringe/angst. I think there could be a bit more push-and-pull tension between Elspeth and Ravyn. (Those being the names of the two main characters say everything about the vibes of the book) The royalty/families system being tree-based is cool and unique, but I will say the tree names get a bit wild after a while. The voice in Elspeth’s head is very intriguing as a story device and i think makes her character particularly unique. She knows she is special and has been trying to hide it where usually the chosen girl discovers she is special and gets launched into a whole new world with *special status*.