i loved the premise and the world building potential that was set up but it felt lacking in lots of areas unfortunately- i wasn't able to invest in the characters or the romance because alot of the stakes didn't stick and jokes didn't land. it did feel instalove with unbalanced dialogue and slow pacing where certain plot points felt unreasonable. i also wanted a deeper exploration of the corruption and systemic issues but it just didn't sink in for me. i had to force myself to get through it and even then i could only skim. this does have spice but the plot didn't do enough to support it