thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review! this has not affected my review in any way, all opinions are mine.

2.5/5 stars, rounded up where needed

this was a hard one. both to review and to get through. while there were definitely parts of this book i enjoyed and a lot of singular lines i liked, i had a hard time liking it as a whole. for some reason, i had a difficult time adjusting to the magic system and world, even at the end, i felt like i didn't entirely understand some aspects of it.

and while i deeply appreciated the casual lgbtqa+ rep, there actually weren't a ton of characters that i genuinely enjoyed and wanted to see more screentime for. i felt wishy-washy about lorena pretty much the entire time, and didn't feel too invested in any of her relationships, romantic or platonic. there are maybe one or two other characters i would've maybe preferred to hear the story from instead (or their stories) but mostly i'm left feeling unsatisfied. especially with the ending, and while i can appreciate what the book is trying to say about the rich, it says it so explicitly and so many times that the book often felt like it was going in circles and like i was getting bashed in the head with it

i can appreciate a lot of aspects of this book, but i don't really enjoy it. this one was a miss for me