Painfully YA and trope-y, and it was disappointingly so. The opening was solid and had me intrigued about how the world worked, but unfortunately anything that sounds cool that could be explored gets sidelined so we can focus more on how EPIC the characters look and how much our protagonist is so Smart and BETTER than other girls…nothing says ‘F the Patriarchy’ like putting down female characters who can’t/won’t step out of line!

Skip this- Whatever positive thing you hear about this book, know that it’s a fraction of the story and that for a majority of the time it’s the protagonist acting contradictory to her own goals and ideals every other scene between intermissions of ‘Patriarchy is SO uncool >:(‘ without the protagonist doing anything tangible to fight against said patriarchy.
I’m saying this as someone who loves feminist literature and was really looking forward to a fantasy story with a female protag fighting monsters with super powers- It’s not that good.

I’m giving it 2 stars instead of 1 because it was a relatively quick read and there are some genuinely good ideas that at the very least kept me interested.