This is not a bad book. Don’t look at my rating and think “oh dear, that doesn’t look good”. In this case it’s actually not necessarily bad book, just a bad book for me.

The premise was pretty darn good: in a middle-ages ish fantasy world where some have Talents, Myrthe inherits a pretty epic one; her tears are wishes. But because she’s desperate to be loved (more on this later) she effs up and gets cursed, and has to find a way to un-curse herself. The world-building could have been better, but the idea was pretty good.

I didn’t like Myrthe, the main (?) character - she was whiny and annoying and boring to listen to. It’s a good thing the POV switched a lot between mostly Myrthe and Bastiaan, because while he wasn’t too fascinating either, anything was better than Myrthe and her constant woe-is-me. And her weird obsession with being loved? By literally anyone who looks at her? Not cute. The “romance” between the two was forced and insta-lovey, the “twists” throughtout the story were obvious and very convenient and just.. meh. Not for me.

The book itself could have been about a hundred pages shorter (so much purple prose, y’all. So much of it. Everywhere, all the time) and needed a heavier editing-hand. The ending felt rushed - the first 50%-ish I enjoyed, they were nicely paced, but a LOT happened in the last 50%, and especially towards the last 75%, and everything suddenly happened very quickly and with absolutely no set-up. Meh.

All that aside, I genuinely think this is an okay read for people who are 1) more used to fantasy novels heavy with magic and 2) people who are simply not me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.