I so wanted to love this book but it was definitely not what I thought it was going to be (and not in a good way).

I found the main character Chloe kind of pathetic in that she barely does anything in the book except have magical temper tantrums. She barely even speaks we don’t get to experience her personality in anyway. The relationship with her mother is completely forgotten about until the last chapter, and then glossed over as if it was no big deal.

I liked Adelita and Ethan but there was so much about them that was confusing or annoying. I don’t buy in to the whole “I met you yesterday and now we are in love” storylines so this one annoyed me.

I liked that Marianne ended up being the bad guy but wasn’t too convinced by her motivations. Also cannot stop cringing at the fact at one point she said she wanted to take over the world. It was too Saturday morning cartoon villain-esque for me.

I kind of liked the magic system but it seemed to convenient to me. The fact the powers that are supposedly elemental could just be altered to fit a situation like Air Elementals being able to control peoples minds??? Lots of the magic system was never really explained, like Adelita’s and Ethan’s spellbinding: you just had to go along with it.

Pacing was a huge problem. The writing was extremely jarring, going from coarse language to cheesy sayings so quickly. The phrase “sorry butt” appeared a page after “Elemental c**t”.

The add-on final chapter was shockingly bad. Really disappointing ending, seemingly trying to emulate Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale but missing the mark by miles.

Too many underdeveloped side characters. A strange and uncomfortable rape sequence slotted in. Character built up to be extremely important to then be sniffed out very easily.


All in all a very lack lustre jarring novel that would not inspire me to read more of Fry’s works in the future.