There were so many things for me to love about this book and I’ll probably reread a physical copy in the future because it has been one of my most anticipated reads ever. But I just could not get into the characters and the world even though they are all elements that I love.

— overall: 2.5, DNF @57% —
⇢ content warnings//

Spoiler

Body horror (graphic), Death (including children), Gore, Injury, Murder, Mutilation, Necromancy, Self-harm, Suicide (depicted and referenced), Trauma, Violence

⇢ representation: Lesbian main character, Chronically/terminally ill side character

SIMILAR VIBES: Nevernight
READ FOR: mysterious, gothic and dark in theory but humorous writing style

“If you do not find yourself a galaxy, it is not so bad to find yourself a star.”

Just the fact that this had a contest sort of setting is enough to make me reach for this book in the future. The writing is very visual, the bones, the necromancy... I love all of those elements and the way it technically plays into the magic system was so interesting. There was a lot more quirkiness than I thought it would have for a story about bones and dead people. But there was just something about how everything was woven together that was not working for me.

The magic system was very well established and I love how necromancy was incorporated while making it sort of… whimsical rather than straight out dark. It was fascinating. I would definitely want to read more necromancy-based magic systems.

The plot and world-building just throws you in and it’s very mind boggling at first so I thought that it would stick to that pacing all throughout but events started to slow down and my interest was just dwindling. Though I didn’t know where the story wanted to go and it just felt like everything was happening around our main character which I’m not exactly a fan of.

I don’t know if it’s because of the audiobook but I already had it at a significantly slower pace than usual and I had the ebook but I just could not follow all of the characters names. Harrow and Gideon were the only blatantly clear to me. I loved that we finally got some non overly sexualized women in fantasy but then again... I couldn't keep track of all of them gahhhh. It was so frustrating.

It was enjoyable reading about them but in my head they're just "that one character who died but it was funny" and "that one who was shirtless at that lake". I thought some of them were quite unnecessary and I didn't know how they fit into the plot. Granted I did DNF this so who knows.

With all that, it was definitely entertaining and the humor definitely sold me. This gave me nevernight vibes and even though I loved the premise and the world, it just wasn’t keeping my interest. I could have read this just for more of Gideon and Harrow because I think they were the saving grace

It’s definitely something unique and in most cases I probably would have liked this as a lover of gothic, dark, and sci fi stories… but my interest just wasn't there.

I have no other words to describe my feelings aside from frustrating because in theory, this is exactly my kind of story and I would have loved it if I was perhaps in a different mood. I was afraid I was going to get into a reading slump if I forced myself through this.

“She was trained in the sword of heavy infantry,”

plot: ★★★★☆
writing style: ★★★☆☆
world building: ★★★☆☆
characters: ★★★★☆
themes: ★★☆☆☆
pacing: ★☆☆☆☆
page turner: ★☆☆☆☆

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PRE READ:
I was not aware that Gideon... was a she

I don’t know what I thought this was about before but I just found out that this is about assassins and necromancy... in SPACE