Severely underwhelming...
That’s the best way I can think to describe this book. And here’s why...
1) The title alone “To Best the Boys” got me excited to read this book. It had me thinking it would be some great adventure that the female main character would go on to prove that women could do what a man could in the world of higher education..... that took up maybe 100 pages of this 300 pages book. I’m sorry, why? Why was the main focus of the book not on the female main character overcoming everything to achieve something no woman had done before?
2) Relationships..... this book was ruined by the need to make the relationships the main focus. Rhen had the potential to be an amazing main character but two thirds of the book were basically her pining away and it just makes a badass female look weak to me. If I wanted the cute stuff I’d read other YA books. She didn’t need to be pining away after some guy the whole book! She should have been curing illnesses and beating the boys the whole time!
3) World building.... or lack thereof (in my opinion). The world created seemed very cool, old English society with some magical tendencies. But we barely got to experience any of it. Even the maze could have been described better, more could have taken place in the maze, hell more descriptiveness would have helped!
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All in all I was very underwhelmed and kinda disappointed with the way this book turned out. I was really excited that it would be an adventurous book and it was for far to short a time for me.