2/5

Audiobook is good at increased speeds.

I... Fail to understand why this book is rated so high. Possible spoilers to follow but my main gripes before I get into potential spoilers are that the world building is a blatant rip off of several books which I later found out she cites as some of her favorite books of all time, Ferye is just a disappointing character, and the writing felt like a fan fiction with no beta reader or editor.

Spoiler rant starts now:

To preface this, I have read nothing else by this author nor have I read up much on this book because this is not a genre that interests me at all and I was reading this book for my friends and family who said it was an amazing high fantasy series. I'm not on this genre of BookTok either.

5 minutes into this audiobook and I immediately clock it as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The dynamics between the three sisters in the beginning definitely also gave off Cinderella vibes. Then we have what felt like a fanfiction crossover where Ferye goes into the woods with her bow and arrow and basically Katniss Everdeen's hunting scene from Hunger Games is described mixed with Beauty and the Beast.

Next big world building copycat I found was the wall where magic exists on one side of the wall and the wall is used as a barrier between the worlds to keep the non-magic people safe. And if you guessed that the climate and culture and traditions and even the seasons and time we're all different on the other side of the wall, you would be correct. Now if you're thinking this sounds familiar, you'd be right! Because it's the exact same style of magic used in The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix or by Neil Gaiman in 'Stardust'. And just like in 'Sabriel', magic is pouring out over the wall and there are a bunch of old timey tales warning about evil magic. The other interesting thing is that non-magic people can smell magic which has a metallic taste which is also an Abhorsen series ability. Upon my investigating once I made it 60% of the way through this novel begrudgingly, I decided to look up how old the author was and learned directly from her Wikipedia page that several of the aforementioned books are listed as her favorites or inspiration.

Then there's near direct rips on dialogue or world building from Tolkien including, "There's talk of strange folk abroad" and the mean antagonist of the story (Aramantha = Sauron) being the sidekick to an even greater evil person (King = Morogoth) who comes to a new land to subjugate the people and murder/do evil bidding. And then, Aramantha goes and claims herself a what? A f*cking mountain that is considered evil where all the evil and their allies dwell and no one goes there and there's also a secret tunnel into the evil mountain where you have to go to make the world whole again. The scenes from Beauty and the Beast where she's tending his hand and after he fights off evil in the woods and hurts himself so as a gift of gratitude, the Beast gives her a library or when the Beast sends her away even though he loves her and then she f*ucks up the special little spell are nearly written verbatim in this.

Needless to say I only ended up liking three characters (Lucien, Alys, and Nesta).

I also don't see what the hype is about the author being such a strong feminist when literally she's writing whole Stockholm syndrome trope. A young woman who is at most 20 by the end of the novel and 19 throughout most of the novel is being held captive in a weird bargaining ploy to save her family and then groomed by a rich dude who controls her food and housing but also her physical safety. Order to save his people. Then she's coerced into being held captive part of the time by another rich dude who also drugs her and forces her into compromising positions (to save herself and the world I guess) in a latter half of the novel. Wild.

Anyway, don't waste your money on this series and just go find yourself a good fanfiction writer on AO3 for free.