so let me start out with saying the first third of this book is incredible. 2 strong female characters, immaculate winter folklore vibes, great eastern european background and jewish traditions. 

then it ruins it by having some of the worst pacing I've ever read 

i commend novik for wanting to make a standalone, but this should have either had half of the content cut out or expanded into 2 or 3 books. so much goes on but it's so hard to care because everything is super surface level, and the pacing is either extremely slow at times or way too fast. there are too many povs with lack of a distinctive voice, and a lot of the time you see the same scene from 2 or 3 different people. the romances were awful, don't know why any of these women want to stay with men who treat them horribly for most of the book. all the good stuff happens at the very end or off screen. novik attempts political intrigue with characters we see once or twice and it doesn't even matter at the end. not sure why we spent so much time on worrying who is marrying who because it DOESNT MATTER 😭 its actually amazing how little I care about anyone in this book, especially with how great the first third is. honestly this would be getting a lower score if it wasn't for that.

honestly just read up to when

miryam is made queen of the staryk

because nothing after that is worth reading