If I had to give a rating for the first 30-40% of this book, I probably would've rated it 4 or 5 stars. Overall, it's still an extremely enjoyable book, there were just too many things bugging me as the book dragged on, and they became more and more present. Obviously, I'm alone in a lot of these, but I still felt them all the same.

First, I felt like the plot itself didn't match up to the setting/characters of the novel, or the expectation I had going in. It felt almost borderline fantasy at moments as it went deeper and deeper into the alchemical side of things, and it just seemed to click with the setting oddly to me. It honestly also wasn't even a problem until it was revealed that

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there was an actual magic cure all to all ailments created, and then it just went too far into fantasy for me.

I love my fantasy, but it just didn't seem to fit here, and there really was only the smallest of bits of it.

I also didn't find the romance was balanced well in the book. We have a lot of it in the beginning: lots of tension, pining, 'almosts', but then suddenly the book cuts back a LOT for the sake of plot. Logically, when one is fighting for their life, romance sometimes falls to the wayside, but honestly the romance was the main reason I was enjoying the book from the beginning anyways, so it just lessened my enjoyment a lot.

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Plus, I kept thinking of, weeks passed and Percy and Monty, after somewhat getting on the same page, haven't kissed or done anything in those weeks? No moment to slip away? It just... felt odd.

I also just thought the overall end of the romance, was tied up rather quickly at the end, and I was just a bit dissatisfied with that.

The book also started just generally dragging for me at points. This was probably due to the length and the focus on the plot in the later parts of the book (as I wasn't a fan of it), but I still found myself just listening along, hoping we could get to the point of some things a little bit faster.

Honestly though, I did really like these characters, and the audiobook definitely heightened the experience. Monty and Percy were generally super cute as a couple and I love how the two seemed to grow off each other. I also really liked Felicity, and might be tempted to read her novel next, but we'll see. Characters can't be the only good thing in a book though, so for that reason, I can really only give this a 3.