Quick Stats
Overall: 3.5 stars
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 3.5/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3/5

This was a thoroughly solid start to a YA fantasy series, and I intend to pick up book 2 when it comes out, but I have to admit this book came as a bit of a disappointment to me. This was a book I’d been highly anticipating—the premise sounded incredible—but it just fell a little flat.
I never got really invested in the story. It was interesting; I wanted to know what came next, but it didn’t pull me in the way a truly good fantasy novel does. I never felt immersed in the story, and I never felt super connected to the characters. I felt disconnected.
The plot dragged at times, and was overall a bit disjointed and slow up until the last fifty pages where it really picked up. The last bit of the book was by far the best part, but it too felt a little disconnected from the rest of the plot up until then.
None of this is to say it’s a bad book—it’s very much not. I did enjoy the book and intend to continue with the series. I loved the magic system and world building, and I really liked the last bit of the book, which made me eager to see what comes next. But knowing Sara Raasch’s earlier work (specifically Snow Like Ashes) I had high hopes that just… weren’t met. It was a good read, but it had the potential to be really great, and it was disappointing that it didn’t live up to that.