I had a few mixed feelings on this book. There was so much I really enjoyed, but on a deeper level, I couldn't connect and it didn't feel well developed.

I liked the overall story quite a bit. It's a really cool high fantasy world. It basically deals with the persecution of witches, bad magic, a couple of orphaned kids, and a princess who's been treated like property her whole life.

All of the elements in the story worked, but I felt like everything needed more development. Like I enjoyed the princess subplot, and the subversion of a few princess tropes, but there was so little time spent on it that I never felt like I could connect with her storyline. The brief explanation of the magic system was super cool, but for the most part, I didn't understand how it functioned. I don't need a step by step guide, but they'd mention things like persuasion spells and I want to have a basic understanding of how that works and how it affects people.

There were so many things that weren't explained, or at least not explained until later in the book. There are assassins who are basically hired by the government and there were a lot of weird things around them. People kept talking about the assassin uniform or recognizing certain assassins, which confused me. Until later in the book it was mentioned that assassins double as guards in addition to all their murdery fun. Like I didn't realize this until the book was almost over. It would have been good to know that early on and it would have explained a lot. That's just a small example, but there was so much that I felt was just glossed over that hindered my overall understanding of the book.

I really liked all the characters. Pip is a 13 year old pickpocket who pretty much spearheads the story, along with his sister, their witchy friend, and a teenage princess. Pip is funny and pragmatic and very much behaves like a child, which I appreciated. For all his responsibilities, he felt like a little brother. Even in this fantasy world where children have to grow up young and provide for themselves, you could still see their immaturity. I love middle grade for that.

But as much as I loved the characters, I never quite connected with them emotionally. Some very sad things happen and I want to be emotionally affected. When they're talking about people they care about being potentially dead, I want to feel that pain. And I didn't. It often seemed like the characters' emotions were muted as well. The way they behaved wasn't always in line with how traumatic the situation should have been.

And I think something that contributed to that was how easily some situations were resolved. Something would happen that seemed awful and hopeless and everyone was scared, but then within a couple pages they'd be well on their way to everything being totally fine again. It never felt like the stakes were high enough for what was happening in the world.

I'm a bit confused as to the audience. The story and main characters felt like a lovely middle grade, but the language felt way too mature. Not in terms of profanity or anything like that, but just the overall vocabulary and sentence structure. I don't think I'd have been able to follow this well as a 10 year old. The plot was also sometimes very complex with a lot of moving pieces, that were not always well explained. Even as an adult there were a few times I got lost. I'm sure there are middle grade readers who would enjoy this, but it would have been confusing for me at that age. But I also feel like because the characters and overall story were geared toward a younger audience, the average YA reader would be dissatisfied as well.

I did enjoy a lot of this book, but it felt like it could have been so much better. Either lengthened and much more developed, or simplified into a smaller story. I just needed a lot more from it. But it was a very enjoyable three stars and I'm glad I read it. I don't think this was bad by any means and I'd recommend it to adults who enjoy middle grade fantasy, but I just wanted so much more.