<b>Quick Stats</b>
Age Rating: 13+
Over All: 2 stars
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
- 1 star because of some weird race stuff and also because of pacing, world building, plot holes, etc.


I’m going start this review by saying that the only reason I requested an ARC of this book was because I was told it would be a future illumicrate pick (my source was incorrect), and because of past controversies surrounding this author’s association with Jay Kristoff*, I wanted to read a copy before I decided whether to pass or not—normally, when an author is controversial I would just pass, but I wanted to give Amie Kaufman a chance, since her controversy is by association.
That said, I was interested in the premise of this book, and I saw many people hyping it up. After reading it, I’m not sure why that is. I think that at its core, this book is average. Reading this made it clear that the real talent behind Illuminae and Aurora Rising are Kristoff.

This book is told in five first person POVs, but the characters are bland and voiceless. I couldn’t tell one character from another while reading. If I skipped over the chapter heading, or set down the book in the middle of a chapter, I had to go back and check which character’s POV it was, because unless they addressed the other characters, it was unclear. I don’t think a single one of our characters had a personality outside of the most basic archetype: the tomboy sailor, the flirty prince, the socially awkward bookworm, the ambitious one, and the one whose just trying to save himself. The characters did, for the most part, have clear motivations (although Keegan and Selly’s weren’t the most convincing). However, that wasn’t enough to make them compelling to read about.
The plot of this book was interesting, but the execution made it fall flat. The stakes were high, but the pacing was off. It dragged for much of the book, except for a couple of chapters near the middle and the very end. Similarly, there were a lot of plot holes. Some came from the plot itself being underdeveloped (I can’t address those without spoiling things), and others came from the fact that the world building was… weird. The magic system is twofold: the spirits and the gods. We get explanation of the gods, but we never get any worldbuilding about the spirits. What are they? Why do they help people? Why are some people magicians and others not? It seems like it’s hereditary, but where did it come from originally? How are the spirits and gods connected? It felt like two different magic systems thrown into one book that don’t make sense together. The worldbuilding and plot were both very weak overall.

The last thing I want to address is the fact that the villain POV character is Black. This is a book written by a white woman. Of the five POV characters 3 are good guys (2 white, one POC), one is a villain (Black), and one is sort of a good guy but working for the bad guy under threat (POC). Mainly it makes me uncomfortable that the villains of the story are two Black girls who are evil because they used to be impoverished, and now that they’re not, they’re so desperate for power they’d commit countless atrocities and mass murder in order to gain more power for themselves. Also found it uncomfortable that the one fully good guy who is a POC specifically describes the villain POV character as being darker skinned than him.
Now, I don’t think this was purposeful racism, but it was weird, and it was uncomfortable, and I wanted to point it out.