1.75/5 stars.

I'm really sad to say that I struggled immensely with this book. I'll start by saying that I really loved the writing in this book. The writing was fantastic as was the setting and visuals. I appreciated the concept of this book but it unfortunately didn't deliver for me.

The story started off strong and had a pretty intriguing introduction but it quickly started to lose steam. I considered DNFing this a handful of times. Not only did the pacing feel incredibly slow to me, but I struggled to get into the story with the multiple POVs. This felt to me like the POVs switched a bit too often to make the story immersive. Right when I felt as though I was getting a grasp on things, I would get thrown into another character's POV and it took me out of it. I also wasn't strongly compelled by really any of the characters which also made the POV change more difficult.

The pacing, unlikeable characters, and extreme animal cruelty/deaths almost made me completely ditch this book several times. I read a lot of horror, but for me, I never like to read about animal cruelty or animal death. Especially when it's strongly detailed and drawn out. The animal cruelty was not only detailed, but really emphasized the suffering of multiple animals and I hated reading it.

Ultimately this book was just not for me. The storyline wasn't gripping in my eyes and had I known about the intense animal cruelty before picking this up, I would've just avoided it altogether. The ending felt rushed and clunky to me. It's a shame because the blurb really had me intrigued and the cover is stunning. Unfortunately not every story is compatible with every reader, and this one was incompatible with me. I liked the writing enough that I would definitely give this author another try in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Goodreads Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7178696410
Fable Review: https://fable.co/review/65fe960e-48f1-4ada-80aa-c531c0987ed4/share