Idk what to think tbh. I had fun, and was pretty hooked over all, but I can’t help but focus on all the bad things about this book.
The good: the dragons, the fantasy vibes, the very last plot twist
The bad: the writing, the romance, the characters, (basically anything that matters in a story like this)
It felt like the characters lacked depth a lot of the times, and that made the romance pretty bad.
I cannot think of a single instance in which Violet and Xanden had a conversation that truly showed how they went from “enemies” to lovers. It was all just lust and immediate trust. And why did Violet have to be so dumb about it too??? Like girl you KNOW he’s keeping secrets so UGHHH. I rolled my eyes way too many times to count. Xanden was annoying too, and some of the lines he would say were just hilarious. The romance definitely should not have happened when it did, but whatever.
The writing was confusing sometimes, and I had to keep rereading some sentences to try to make sense of them, it also did not feel like the right language for the type of setting they were in. They just talked like people from our time (and I’m not saying they have to talk super fancy and confusing, but the author could’ve tried a bit harder).
The dragons were fine. I wish Violet would’ve just

bonded to one instead of two

, just so that it would’ve been more believable. It just doesn’t make sense to me how she got to that point, like she was NOT that special. It felt to me just like Poppy in the third From Blood and Ash book (where she was just the most powerful being ever in the world for no reason).
My biggest complaint I think is that the book SHOULD'VE ENDED AT THE THRESHING. It could’ve been like Throne of Glass,  in which the whole book was about the competition. That way, the whole thing could have been more structured—instead of it seeming like the author was making things up as she went—and the characters would have had more time to be developed instead of everything being so black and white and convenient! This is just my opinion though, and I get what the author was trying to do. I just wish she would have gone about it a bit differently.
The reason I’m still rating it so high is because: a)it made me care enough/have enough opinions to write this whole review lol, and b) I did not get bored that much, just a couple times or so. I will probably read the next book just to see where it goes, but I don’t expect much more than what we got in From Blood and Ash and the rest of that series 🤮