Where to begin?

House of Marionne is about a teen named Quell - shit name - who has some sort of bad magic that rather than teach her about or how to control, her mother has her on the run for years to hide it from her magically respected family. The magic manifests into something like black ash or shadows or something and apparently this is bad for reasons not really made clear.

Fast forward to some people called Draguns - no discernible reason for the name or spelling - hunting her, Quell's mum sends her to the very place theyve been running from and tells her to seek sanctuary. Said place is a school for magic people, one of four and this particular house is run by Quell's obviously shady grandmother who is like Professor McGonagall and Anna Wintour had a very rude baby.

Quell has to learn about magic and this school in a matter of seconds in order to graduate in some fashion that isnt that clear in order to hide her bad magic and avoid annihilation.

I liked the Bridgerton esque feel of school with its debutante balls and learning how to curtsy was cute enough but it was all very...pretty. The whole book is pretty and 1000% YA.
There is no darkness to speak of so if you like that sort of squeaky clean, no frills YA, then be my guest. The romance is wack too.

I pretty much disliked everything else and found it a struggle to read the last 25% because i lost interest. The magic system could have been stronger, the dialogue was weak, pacing was too slow and the brooding bad boy was neither brooding or bad. Simply possessing shadow powers doesnt make you edgy dude. You actually have to BE edgy -_-

I did like the grandmother but by the end of the book, when her role in the story was revealed to be the role i thought it was from the beginning, it felt super basic. Nothing came as much of a shock and even the end which i didn't see coming - mainly because the character held no interest - still wasnt enough to make me think 'oooh, i really need to read book 2'

Quell is largely uninteresting but then most 17 year olds are so what ya gonna do. The author just didnt really create anything of substance about her or the other characters around her who all felt flat and largely insignificant.

There was a lot going for it in terms of the setting but at times i wasnt even sure where or when this was. The worldbuilding felt rushed and incomplete when there was so much more that could have been done to flesh it out and make me want to be in this place.

There's also the level of racial ambiguity in this that i really didnt respect and thought was a little cowardly. No descriptions of anyone black from a mixed author felt like a sale grab and comparing it to Fourth Wing was an outright lie.

In short, i'm really disappointed in this one and wanted it to be much better