First off, I would like to thank the publisher and author for providing me this ARC to review. Please note that the version I read was an advanced copy, and certain events/language may be changed in the published edition.

Stars (Out of 10): 5/10 Stars

I took a few days to think over this book, and what I thought of it, as different parts of this book spoke to me more than others. All in all, I’d say it had a pretty weak start, and didn’t play up the plot points I thought it would, but I still found myself sucked into the story by the end of it.

I’m just gonna start off by saying that the synopsis gives away the entire main twist of the book (I had guessed it before I had even started reading), and even when I started reading, the foreshadowing was a smidge too obvious. Since that twist ended up being the climax of the plot as well, it led to a subpar finale overall. It also made the book feel as if it didn’t truly have an ending, as both the knowledge of the twist and reveal of the twist made it feel like more was needed to tie everything together.

Additionally, the beginning was fairly weak too. We spend a few chapters learning a small bit of the world, and of the main characters in Adelaide’s life, as well as the mundane worries in her day to day life, including of wanting to be liked by a boy. It wasn’t an intriguing start at all, and the only thing that kept me reading was the whispers of something grander and more magical later on. Additionally, the beginning was so heavy with obvious fairy tale references that it became tacky, especially in regards to the Cinderella character. I assume this is to either introduce the author’s other future works in the world, but it felt out of place here, since she never came again, not even in the narrator’s thoughts.

While Adelaide was interesting in her unique motivations, wanting to settle rather than travel and explore, it didn’t make for as interesting a narrator. Adelaide wasn’t interested in learning about the rest of the world + her/her mother’s past, even as more and more clues were laid before her, which made the reader less interested in it all as well. Adelaide also has the tendency to steal, and is seen as a successful thief, due to her rough childhood after her mother’s death. However, I had two main issues with this. Firstly, she doesn’t seem to be all that successful at all. The book starts with her in the middle of a robbery, and she explains how long it took to plan, but she still makes a mistake (just to introduce the Cinderella character). Then, throughout the rest of the book, she almost never is able to be successful alone, in terms of stealing and sneaking, and always requires being led by other characters. Secondly, Adelaide seems to randomly steal things, even though she doesn’t need to in the competition, as she’s surrounded by gowns and jewelry that were given to her as well as entirely taken care of. Since her stealing habit was born out of need, it feels weird to see it continued as strongly throughout the book, though I get it is a habit. Additionally, it seems to be an active trait as well, in the sense that the author needs to continuously remind us that she does this, with the moments sometimes breaking the flow of the story.

In terms of plot, it felt like there was both too much in focus and not enough actually happening. We seem to have two main plots, the competition and the heist, but instead of blending together well, they fought with each other instead. And still, even with two main plots battling for the domination of a scene, there were many dull moments, of simply characters hanging around or just to show time is passing. Also, even though the pacing didn’t feel weird, in hindsight it all moved rather fast. There was more than a week between stages of the competition, but we almost never saw any of it, making it seem like people were getting eliminated every other chapter.

However, despite all the issues I had with it, I still ended up getting hooked into the story around 50% of the way in. Something about the writing kept interested in the story (once the competition started/Adelaide left Ericuria), and it all seemed to move by really fast, perhaps due to how the story was paced. Most of the individual parts were fairly well planned and written, I just wasn’t a fan of how it all came together to form the overall novel. I’m curious about where the story will continue to go, but I’m not sure if I’ll be picking the next books up yet.