There's a lot about this book that I liked but it was absolutely not the narration of the audiobook. It's the same narrator who ruined Stronger Than A Bronze Dragon for me! AGHHHHH! I made a conscious effort to disassociate the narrator from the content. I just like convinced myself I was hearing the narrator of the Charlotte Holmes series and it helped a little but PLEASE STOP RUINING BOOKS! You can do so much cool stuff with audiobook narration...stop doing this stuff.

I liked how dark this book was and it def didn't shy away from the murdery stuff. I liked the characters and politics and conflicts and trying to steal the throne games.

I went in aware that people were claiming this was racist towards African Americans. I was watching for that and I just...don't see it. I am not a person of colour but I feel like I'm self aware and comprehend microaggressions. I'm thinking that the YA Twitter community has started confusing the existence of slavery in a book as racism and holding a North American-centric POV of everything...which is rather concerning and why I avoid YA Twitter.