My Rating : 3.75
.
Thankyou so much Netgalley for providing the e-arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.
.
This book follows our main squad of characters : Our oblivious yet sassy princess Asterin, her bro/bodyguard Orion who is a total buttercup sweetness, her bestie/lady in waiting Luna who is fiercely loyal and strong, (Not to forget the two new warrior royals who wants to protect her at all cost) her royal warrior queen Rose who has the best dialogues and is really witty, her magic guru/CRUSH Quinlin who is a package and a perfect BF material for her reallyy , and FINALLYY my darling bae Harry who is actually a demon but such a goofball, loyal to the squad and is my favorite character in this whole book really.
.
First of all, let's talk about the different characters introduced and followed. I wouldn't call them the best squad, but they were an amazing group of friends with varying character traits. Harry is my absolute favorite and I will fight y'all if you say so otherwise. The character development he gets through the course of this book is amazing and it's so heart breaking to read about his background and his story. The other characters were complimenting to one another and really made this book better. The magic system is element based, and they kind of have a catalyst in the form of stones to harness their power. I am a really big fan of elemental magic and it was quite nice to read about the system.
.
Second of all, the plot line of this book was a little cliched and it's nothing we haven't seen in any YA fantasy book and of course predictable. But what made this really different was the multiple perspective of all the characters involved in any important scene and how it affected everybody. The pacing was quite slow at the start of this book, but it kept me going because I was already in love with the side characters more than the main characters and wanted to find more about them.
.
With that being said, The dialogues were a little choppy and incoherent at times and felt awkward to actually play the scene out in your head, but as long as you aren't keen on sentence formation, you could enjoy the story. At times you get confused slightly to why certain scenes are happening and figure out the reason later. I was slightly annoyed with that, but it didn't hinder the plot. I would have liked there to be more character development for the whole squad and would have loved to know more about the kingdom and the magic system in general. We get the present happenings of them all, but a bit of history would have helped this book a lot more.
.
Overall, I absolutely loved the side characters more than the main ones ( Especially Orion and Harry.. what can I say? I would marry Harry in a heartbeat. Who wouldn't? And they are the most adorably handsome fierce strong characters that kept me focused on reading this book). The plotline is not very unique but it gave an interesting twist in the perspective and the ending was absolutely devastating to read. I really wish things gets resolved in the second book because my little heart is slightly breaking because certain things happened and I don't want them to stay that way. It's a solid fantasy read if you overlook the overused plotline, cliched story, slightly awkward dialogues at times and predictable plot twists. I would definitely recommend this book IF you don't mind the above list.