I enjoyed it at first, but my enjoyment quickly waned as I kept reading. And pretty soon, reading this book felt like wandering around in the shadow Gallant – dull and lifeless.

At the beginning, the writing seemed beautiful, but then it started feeling really forced and frilly. It was also reminiscent more of a fairy tale than a fantasy novel – key information was conveniently left out so as not to have to explain anything. Everything was simplified and the reasoning never went beyond 'just because'.

She doesn't give the reader any information. What's the history of this place? How and why did it come to be? Why is it all happening? Who's the man beyond the wall and what's his plan? No clue! There was just NOTHING of substance to make this story good. And the repetitions, my god. If you cut them out, there's barely anything left of the book.

Perhaps the weirdest thing was that even though the book doesn't read exactly juvenile, I was flabbergasted to find out that Olivia was 16, not a little child. Even after I found out her age, I kept imagining a child because that's how her character came across.

I've enjoyed everything else I've read by V.E. Schwab, but this was a huge flop for me.