3.75 Stars I enjoyed this quite a bit. I listened on audiobook. The voice actor does a fantastic jobs with all the male voices. Different accents and inflections really made those characters come to life. I will say that I didn’t necessarily feel the same about the way he voiced the female characters, although he still used different accents for them. There were a couple of instances where two or more characters, one male and one female at least, would be talking and I would lose track of who was saying what because they sounded so similar. In any case, I do recommend the audiobook.

The characters are well-written, as far as our protagonists go. I have to say I feel like Magnus’ father is a little one-dimensional, at least at this point. Magnus was probably my favorite among the main characters (Magnus, Cleo, Lucia, and Jonas), but I also like Jonas quite a bit. I hope Cleo gets a little more...badass? She was fine, but something about her just didn’t really allow me to connect to her. Lucia was the most boring of the four, IMO.

The plot isn’t particularly unique, following a relatively routine story. True, there is much more violence and death in this book as compared to other YA fantasy series, but the basic concept didn’t feel very original. That said, it was well-written and I enjoyed the political intrigue.

As far as the world building, I kind of feel the same about that as I did about the plot. It was good, but it felt run-of-the-mill to me. I still enjoyed learning about these different cultures and how they fit together, but I feel like I’ve read similar stories in the past.

I am very curious to see where the series goes from here, and am eager to go into the next book soon.