I may end up upping this to three stars but I honestly don't know yet, the ending felt super unsatisfying and I don't really want to continue the series.

Overall, this book was kinda a meh-fest. Nothing really special stuck out to me, from the plot to the characters to the world. It's honestly probably going to be one of those books I'll have forgotten I read in a few months.

In terms of plot, it was entirely predictable in my opinion. Nothing, from

Spoiler

Scarlett being fae to Kassandra being the one to bring the king to his maddened death (tho idk if thats confirmed yet?)

was a surprise, and it made the book extremely boring and disappointing. I need twists to sustain my interest in a book if the characters and world don't really do that.

In terms of the world building, this type of fae was nothing new, and if anything way too human like. It just wasn't all that interesting, it might as well have been set in a fantasy world with humans who had magic. There was no true interplay of the races like the other fae books I read, and the personalities and qualities of the fae were far too human-like, removing any "otherness" the supernatural quality of their race generally brings.

In terms of the characters, I just... I don't know. They tired me. Cade felt extremely inconsistent, the way we read his POV felt like an entirely different character than who the others experienced, and while that kinda makes sense, it also felt wrong, in a way. Maybe it was his shallowness, his two-dimensionality, that ruined it. Or the fact that his only character trait was that he listened to everything his mother said... Scarlett was alright, but once again, nothing really new or exciting. Raith as well, the normal misunderstood bad guy who isn't actually bad. Even the family dynamic, of multiple mothers and a distant father and everything wasn't that interesting, because I've read it all before (in Red Queen). Not sure how the release dates play off on that though, so no judgement, but it did mean I wasn't interested, as it was just a rehashing of a dynamic I've already seen played out before.

The writing itself wasn't great. While a lot of others commented on how horrible it was, I don't necessarily agree. It wasn't that bad, but it just wasn't that good either. It had no personality or passion really, and read so matter of factly, with lots of short sentences that made it read even choppier than it already did.

Overall, I wasn't into it and I don't think I'll continue the series, as I'm pretty sure of the twists that will be big reveals later on. The covers are gorgeous though, and it wasn't a horrible read, just a bit too boring for me.