I was warned to expect a "romcom anime" kind of a book and that's exactly what I got. Too bad it was also a YA, not my favorite age range (in comparison: Tress of the Emerald Sea read more like a middle grade, so it didn't bother me as much there). Main characters were as annoying as was expected from angsty teenagers, but kudos to the author for writing Painter as the biggest loser of all his protagonists across cosmere, that was quite refreshing to read.

All this aside, it would be a five star read if it weren't for two things. Firstly, the pacing. The very beggining was interesting (worldbuilding etc.), but the closer I got to a halfway point, the more boring it got. I wanted to move the plot, not watch the characters going shopping. If the book weren't so short, I would have dnf-ed it. Thankfully, the plot picked up again soon after that.

And secondly, I am not a biggest fan of an omniscient narrator who has to explain things to you. I love Hoid and his comments, but here he had to clarify a lot of worldbuilding at the end, otherwise the reader would not understand what was happening and why. It felt like lazy writing. I want to put pieces of worldbuilding together by watching characters act, not have it infodumped at me.