my overall sentiment is that this book/series had the potential to pull me in but in the end the bad outweighed the good.

things I didn’t like that affected my rating:

-predictability

I predicted the end of this book about three chapters in, which alone is not the worst thing but the fact that the very obvious thing was the only major thing to happen at the end of the book made it lose any punch for me

-clunky writing

hard to explain, but the chain of events was all over the place. it made me feel like I was listening to an abridged audiobook (which I can assure you I was not because I checked several times). Several things occurred that made me wonder if I had missed development/ plot, but what was happening was these events were happening off-page, which made the story feel out of wack

-repetitive descriptions

some descriptors were used very frequently. to the point I thought it might be foreshadowing for some power trait or something (as of the end of book 1 it is not). “sweat broke out along my spine” “my mouth went dry” 

I think this may have been more obvious in the audiobook since that made it way more clear to me that these were being repeated so many times

-lack of build-up/chemistry between the leads

This also falls under the clunky story category. I felt like I missed the development between these two and blinked and they were acting like they were in love. it made me feel like I had missed a chapter where a major plot had occurred (which, again not the case)

things I liked that affected my rating:

-world building

the setup for the world is very intriguing and had me hooked from the beginning. I feel like you could immediately tell that not everything was what it seemed which is a good setup for any book

-intrigue

I was intrigued the whole time. Even with my issues I was interested to know what would happen next

-enjoyability/slump cure

I finished this book fairly quickly and enjoyed it. I had reactions, thoughts, and it made the wheels turn. I was able to finish it, and that is a plus for me post-slump. I think I might tell someone to pick this up to cure a slump because no matter what, it will incite strong emotions

Unfortunately, I do not think I will be continuing with this series.