First positively the author has a beautiful way of describing rooms, places, clothes, details with adjectives and so the world building is effective and stunning.  Unfortunately that's about where it ends. The last survivor/resurrected of the drown family is constantly cutting themselves to do blood magic. The premise is they are trying to undo the corruption on the land caused by the tragedies and causing the tragedies  This corruption had killed all the plants and blackened the water of the lake.
The other characters introduced who are trying to help with their magic are failing and also start self cutting to pull power which seems both dark, repeatative and unhelpful. The narrator makes a deal with the dark underlord and gives up her family... The love triangle between the undrowned traffic love survivor and the dark underlord both seem like abusive relationships full of gaslighting, darn deals and unfortunately violent power dynamics.. Giving up positive things in their lives to try to save this cursed land. 

It all became redundant, dark and pointless. There's really no plot, the relationships aren't founded in love but more power dynamics, pity, and tragedy.  I skimmed through entire book speed reading after the first half trying to see if it would evolve and a plot would evolve. Nothing evolved.

Sadly I can't recommend this, as despite the promising descriptive language and world building, the characters relationships are very triggering for me as an abuse survivor, and the self cutting is horrific, knowing people who suffered with cutting in real life this is not ok to weave into a young adult book as a source of magic. It's not cutting is just tragic self harm.

If you want some fun gothic horror, this is a fun ride. I, still debating on my rating of this. Rowan and his story is deeply haunted and well crafted. Besides him, I felt I hard to connect with anyone else. I found Letta quite unlikable throughout most of the story and we are supposed to be in her head. 

The chemistry… wow… just wow 
And this is YA 🤭


I wanted more ghosts and crimson peak and I was left with lots of 19th medical practices. There was no trigger warning for blood and cutting, should have been been in the forward (In my opinion).🫠

biggest hint this book will suck: main character's name is violeta graceline.

if you like this book i beg you to read something else because this must be the only book you have read in your life. it's not even entertaining enough as a hate-read.

this book reads like what every edgy teen wrote in middle school, but we all grew up and knew it sucked and should never been a published book. this author didnt.

it feels like the author assumes the reader is an idiot and needs to be shown graphic child abuse at page 7 for us to understand that the adoptive mother is bad. there are so many ways to convey this info without functionally beating it us over the head with it. (sorry for the shit pun, not intended)

the main character is unloveable and irritating. the opening scene has her "saving" her brother from child abuse yet she follows it up with making him, with freshly burned and blistered hands, clean her wounds. ??????? do it yourself!!!

hey reader do you know how the main love interest is bad? because violeta literally calls him monster all the time for in my eyes zero reason. (yes i know the reason in universe but it seems like the least of violetas worries considering her brother is being engulfed in darkness and her whole thing is about how he is innocent even though people would consider him a monster.... girl!??!?!?!?!?!?!) but worry not reader, she makes sure to tell us he's attractive as soon as she sees him and in the following page too. also don't worry she makes sure to later on tell us that she herself is "curved and small"....... GIRL SHUT UPPPPPPPPPP

you already know where the story will go and how things will play out. nothing about this book is compelling or loveable. it's paced like garbage. has awful characters. an unloveable main character. a poorly built fantasy world. and zero good qualities.

normally id give a book 2 stars if it wasn't my taste but i figured someone else would enjoy it, but if youre going to read a ya fantasy or romance there is literally any number of books that is more worth your time, energy, and money. dont even borrow this from a library. it SUCKS.

Lives rent free in my head

This book read like a 2012 self-insert watt pad fanfic, especially in the beginning. There’s a lot of build-up with no delivery and it seems like instead of letting the story speak for itself, the author instead just tells you how you should feel about the story. 

At the beginning, the main character refer to the (initial) antagonist as “the monster” constantly. After hearing a single rumor about him, being told that he’s called a monster and having like 2 interactions with him. It’s like it was just easier to have the main character keep calling him a monster instead of actually illustrating it and leading you to that conclusion yourself. The entire book just felt like it was trying to hard to be dark and scary, without actually delivering. 

My biggest complaint, though, is the descriptions throughout do not line up. When I read, I have a movie that plays in my head of what’s going on in the book. And the way actions were described, it completely took me out of the story almost constantly! For example, if it describes two characters in the same room, at first it will describe them as being on opposite side of the room, and then 2 seconds later it’ll be saying that character A grabbed Character B’s hand. When did they cross the room?? Did I miss something or do they just have super long arms?? 

My final note:

there’s supposed to be  a love triangle in this?? The third person in the supposed love triangle is only actually in a scene maybe 3 times. And the way it’s described it felt my creepy and weird than anything. Reading it, I kept thinking to myself “does the author mean for it to sound like the main character is kind of into him??”

Nothing about it seemed intentional.