Ok, you know when your close friend comes up to you and is like "I have a secret talent... I can sing." And you're excited for them so you happily take a seat to listen and immediately when they start you just know they can't sing and no one in their life has been kind enough to tell em? Well, that's what this book felt like. Someone isn't being honest with our girl during editing.

I am here and will always be down for a Black protagonist and Black love and everything Black. Always rooting for that and also, I want to read a good book. But the writing was subpar at best and I think I'm being kind when I say that. It was choppy and wildly disorganized. I could hardly follow transitions when they happened and EVERYTHING about Lore and her love interests felt forced and wasn't even given enough room to develop. The timing is soooo weird, and while the author is telling me 2 weeks have passed it's felt more like 2 months and when 2 months has passed it's felt more like 2 weeks. 

The design of world is also interesting and discombobulating. Like I barely understand the difference in the fae lineages and species and also, ain't no WAY, she get out that queens castle the way she did. I luh? g 

I'm also not bought into Lore. Like she seems wildly childish to me, and while I was ok with that in the beginning because I love a good coming of age story, the moments that were clearly supposed to constitute as her growth, didn't align for me nor make sense for how I understood her character. Also, Asher - babes. Saw that coming from the beginning. YOU BOTH WERE GONE FROM THE CASTLE AT THE SAME TIME AND ONLY ONE OF YOU ARRIVED BACK AND THEN LATER THE OTHER!?. nah. 

Everything felt predictable and I think Finn is WILDLY underdeveloped but a character I actually want to know. It was just boring and hard for me to stay engaged. Overall, underwhelmed and sad because I wanted to LOVE it. But I won't let this stop me from reading Black fantasy!! It matters !!! And I have high hopes for the second boook! A debut is hard!