I expected this.




Before starting this, I got a heads up that the first book in this series is bad and yes, it met my low expectations so I knew I'll give this a low rating. Still, I'm continuing the series since I heard the sequels get better and better, and I'm excited!


“You could rattle the stars"


First the plot, it was meh, I didn't feel intrigued or invested by it. Caleana is a young assassin and there's this game similar to the hunger games, but with other assassins. The last assassin standing would be the champion. In the middle of their competition, continuous brutal murders happened . So she finds herself interested in the deaths and also finds herself in a love triangle. Yeah, I guess that's it.


The unknown murders weren't even thrilling to me. The tests for the assassins were not at all action-packed and the actual fighting only happened at the very end. I read through this with a blank face.




I wasn't a fan of the writing style here, especially with the amount of random exclamation marks. It wasn't poetic! It was not dramatic! Ok Lmao!

The world-building was lacking. There were places mentioned outside the dull castle where they live and I thought that at least those parts would be shown but there were nothing, none, na-da.

I am tired with love triangles (not you TID, you're incredible). I actually didn't care about their love tr**ngle, some Chaol x Celaena and Dorian x Celaena scenes were funny and some were irritatingly bad.

Celeana's overconfidence was annoying me. Although, I liked her being a bad-ass heroine but *sigh*, I couldn't just connect to her.

Dorian and Chaol were simply bland. I swear I got confused by these two on who's who because they were just similarly bland. But as time went by, I can identify them. Dorian was this plain prince and Chaol was this plain one who gave me tamlin vibes (idk why but i think because his character was the first love interest that will eventually be ruined by the next books).

Almost everybody loved Nehemia so I was like, hoping to really like her. At first, I didn't feel her character but then she grew on me. So yes, I loved Nehemia, she was a great friend. Also, Nox absolutely did nothing wrong here so that made me like him for no other reasons.


I know this book was kinda meh for me, but…




and i'm looking forward to know how things will improve in the next books :)

Buddy read with Ish, Julia, Lucy, and Erin!! these amazing ppl <3
_

good riddance

review to come