This is my first time reading anything by Chloe Gong and as this was the first of her works in the adult fantasy genre I thought I’d check it out, plus I really like this cover

In my opinion this is leaning more towards young adult. The themes, the characters, the scope and writing style all felt very YA to me. This isn’t a bad thing at all as I enjoy YA, I just don’t like it when you pick up a book with certain expectations and consequently it did cause this book to have an identity crisis

That being said, I enjoyed that there was different elements to the plot line. They worked well together in the story and I liked how they were intertwined and it never felt like they were added just for plot purposes but instead felt natural to the story

The magic system was quite unique even though it felt a little gimmicky to begin with. As story progresses there was some depth added to it and some of the characters used it to their advantage in a slick way and it was fun to read about

It was quite an addictive read at times and I found myself unable to stop reading around certain chapters. However, there’s nothing genre defining here and there’s a high chance you’ve probably already read about it before. The political intrigue of the word wasn’t really anything to shout about and the ending was predictable but I think I would’ve been annoyed if it had ended any other way so I was satisfied with this

If you are looking for your next adult fantasy read then I think you will be a little disappointed but if you are a YA lover and enjoy all the tropes then this might be for you