look i tried. it is not unreadable or anything, but with an overwritten prose style leading to an egregious 600 page count (full of absolutely NOTHING) it’s flaws are glaring. how the world building manges to be both overly descriptive, info dumpy, tedious, shallow, and nonsensical all at the same time is truly a feat. i don’t have it in me to care about these rich people or the idea of a forbidden romance involving

lin and conor,

who is easily the most bland, uninteresting, annoying, useless characters i’ve read in a long time. it was like watching a black hole suck the life of of me and everyone else on the page. i almost wished kel would snap and bomb that goddamn palace to free me from my misery if nothing else.

lin doesn’t have a personality of much note, cassandra still falls into  generic YA tropes despite ostensibly being an adult book (it’s not. the characters are just 23. you can tell because they ✨visit brothels✨) and it’s quite clear no one has seriously edited this woman in a long time. the most interesting part of the story is definitely lin and mayesh which we tragically get very little of and instead suffer through paragraph after paragraph of lin suffering through nonsensical misogynistic oppression (i understand the oppression towards her race, even if i think it’s poorly written. but why is there misogyny but no homophobia. does cassandra have any clue how these things work on a systemic level? i know the answer is no, but good god.) and her sad boring friend marie. enough!