I really tried to push through this book but ultimately I found the chapters so long winded and boring.

The characters are very pretentious which is clearly very intentional but made them very difficult to read about especially when all their mannerisms felt identical to one another. 

Whilst the writing does capture the dark academia atmosphere very well, I felt like for every 15 pages there was 1 tidbit which moved the plot along…which left me feeling bored. 

After 200 pages and still not being invested in the plot or characters - safe so say this is not the book for me.

After a week of trying to sit down with this book and only getting to the half way mark I had to DNF.

Whilst the plot seemed okay, I just couldn’t get hooked into the story and even with short chapters it felt like it was dragging out. The characters felt very cliche for me which perhaps didn’t help but something about the writing style just wasn’t working for me. 

Sadly I think M.W Craven just isn’t the right author for me but can see why other might enjoy it. 

Sadly I think this book just isn’t for me. It feels very descriptive which is nice for setting an atmosphere but the plot is incredibly slow and as I got to 37% (4 & 1/2 hours) of the way through there wasn’t any clear goal or relationship to route for.

I personally felt a bit lost within the heavy fable/fairytale magic that without a clear plot/goal to follow along this book just lacked any real substance for me to sink my teeth into. 

Sadly my first DNF for 2024

Sadly I just couldn’t really get into this book.

I felt that whilst the writing was beautiful in places and very poetic at times it was also incredibly descriptive which left very little movement in the short stories. 

Having completed the 5th short story in this book it started to become a little repetitive. Whilst the technical plot is different they are all very much the same:

1) Girl/boy meets girl/boy falls instantly in love at first sight 
2) some small inconvenience 
3) end up together anyway 

I think this book would be better appreciated but a different type of reader than myself. 

The main decision to DNF this on the basis that each story started to feel too predictable and whilst ‘the love at first sight’ scenes are well written just started to leave me bored. 

Really disappointed and ended up not being able to finish the book. The idea seemed promising but this felt very much a style over substance for the story. It plays with abstract idea of a mathematical cross philosophical cross musical game but feels too loose to ground yourself anywhere in the book. I can’t in good conscious recommend this book to anyone. 

It may be that the book picks up and gains legs later in the story but if it takes over the third of the book to do so it’s probably not for me. Just a shame as I was really hoping for more.