2.75, maybe 2,5.

Jack of all trades but master of none is the phrase I'd use to describe this book. It tries to do too many things at once and they clash together, allowing nothing to truly shine. It's not a bad book, or even a boring one, but it falls flat in so many areas.

The description, which is the main star of the book, is dragged down by the insistence of a deep and daring plot that is a letdown and to me, the weakest element in the book. While Morgenstern managed to create fantastical imagery to an impressive scale through the completion, it never felt high stakes, or even that it mattered. The book would have been so much better without it, or if the circumstances had been tweaked. I felt like this book was going from enemies to lovers but never committed to it because the lovers were never enemies, their tutors were just making a bet on who was the best tutor and forcing them to compete in a completion where the penalty is humiliation for the tutor and it can go on for as long as it must and it will be over when it is over and there are no rules just someday someone will know that there has been a winner, and then someday after that someone will know that it is over.

Secondly, while the tense allowed for wonderous descriptions, it meant that the entire book was told to us. Again, fine for description, but for the plot: breaking the cardinal rule of storytelling, show, don't tell. And it suffered for this.

I wish this had just picked a lane and stayed in it because it could have been great.