Y'all. I'm finding it pretty hard to express how much I loved this book. I have kind of a complicated relationship with books that take place primarily in flashbacks (in this book, future Tea tells her story to someone else, which is the narrative of the book), and I think it's a storytelling technique that's overused and easy to get wrong. But oh boy, did Rin Chupeco get it right. The future storyline was agonizingly slow (a few paragraphs at the end of every chapter) but it was so dark and different from the main story that I'm just absolutely dying to see how the two finally connect. The world-building was so, so beautiful. The plot was at once very familiar (it's a "mc goes to magic school" book in the most basic sense, so a lot of the beats follow that kind of pattern) but then also extremely interesting and engaging.

To be honest, I'm not sure what about this book sets it apart for me from all of the other books that fall into this pretty specific category. (MC discovers powers, goes to magic school, is extra strong, starts a relationship with someone above their station, subplot becomes a fight at the end)

It was just...so good. I'm not sure what else to say except that everyone who likes YA fantasy should read it and love it as much as I did.