decided to pick this up despite not really enjoying acotar on recommendation from my friend jana! sorry it took me so long to get to it girl😭😭 (she recommended me this is in april 2022). this is about a teenage assassin who starts off the book in this horrendous jail where they're used for slave labour in mines. she gets picked to compete in this trial thing for the king and if she wins, she has to be the king's guard for a few years and then she will be pardoned for her crimes. this had an interesting premise but it just felt like a useless book. this entire book is about the trials (which happen over the course of like 2 months and there is one challenge every week) but sometimes it just skips over them??? like obviously a bunch of interesting stuff happens between the trials and the book should focus on that too but they felt like such a back drop for the love triangle. you know me I love romance but I can't stand when it's done so poorly😭😭 especially when there's meant to be cool trials going on!!! the scenes with the trials are often so short and at some points, just skipped over entirely!! there's one where she just goes "oh yeah, the next trial was yesterday and thank god it was knife throwing so I did great" like what?? please elaborate girl that's the interesting part??? anyway there's apparently like 6 books and jana told me that the first 2 are bad but it gets great at book 3 like girl😭😭 do I really put myself through that? idk we'll see. 2.5 stars