While I understand the premise of this book and the point it is trying to make, unfortunately this did not mesh with me in the way that I would have hoped. 

From the first pages I was completely unimpressed and annoyed by main character Saffron who in short was very depressing. As I’ve said I understand that dealing with her body image and stressing about body positivity in the wake of such a online social media climate is the point of this and therefore would be very relatable to some, but for me it was too negative and depressing and basically just not any fun. 

Despite her reasoning for doing so, I could not get behind saffron‘s catfishing of others, her jealousy of her friends who at the start were only trying to be nice to her. Her insecurities basically annoyed me more than they allowed me to feel sorry for her because they almost felt self-inflicted?
Other than the ridiculous ex who treated her terribly and the truly nameless strangers that treated her shit on the app, Saffron’s image of herself was purely based on everything she had been consuming and had there been more emphasis on her wanting to change this consumption earlier in the book then 60% I may have felt more positive about it. 

I stopped reading at 78% when I found myself skimming to see if it was going to get any more positive. I didn’t like the representation on her mother, didn’t like the internal conflict. I didn’t like the constant self-deprecation and again to use the word depressing, but it was just so extremely negative that I just didn’t want tocontinue.

I understand as I said above that these feelings can be relatable to many people who are dealing with body images and I can only imagine what that is like for girls struggling but for myself who only wants to engage with things that are positive and don’t make me feel terrible about myself, this was not the right content for that. Some great quotes on social commentary and the effects of social media which i respect but i just wasnt enjoying it and i read to have fun and this just made me sad. 

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for the arc. All opinions on my own 

Okay, so in short, I found this really boring.
That's harsh but its the truth and before going into the reasons why, that's my overall feeling for the book: it was incredibly boring.
From the start its just endless dialogue and description and worldbuilding that doesn't actually really explain anything. I found it tiresome.

Imani is a warrior of some kind and her brother was a warrior of some kind goes missing for a while. They realise that he did not go missing but was in fact taken or ran off - im not sure which - because their leaders were lying to them about what's going on outside of their country. Considering Im not entirely sure what is going on inside their country, it really didn't mean much.
Imani manages to get a genie of some kind which is bad for reasons unclear. She hangs around a boy she thinks hates her, when its clear if she'd ever read any fantasy book would know that this means thats her soulmate.
The dialogue was repetitive throughout which characters hashing out things we've already discussed. Just endless talking with minimal action that I just did not care about at any point. 
I finally gave in when there was a whole scene and description and back and forth about her horse dying just so she'd be forced to be on the same horse as the boy who hates/loves her.
I'm over it

No plot. Stupid FMC. Ridiculous MMCs. Age gap was NOT cute. Writing was trash

World building was flat. Characters werent very smart/believable. Plot/rationale/reasoning was weak. Smut wasnt great. It felt amateurish. Someone trying to be dark who isnt really a dark writer

DNFd at 11% and since i know that seems like no time at all, I will elaborate.

I started this one night when i was sleepy and as i tried to get through the tome of a glossary and prologue that left my mind befuddled with more than just sleep, i decided to refresh and give it another go.
In the cold light of day, the terms and opening were no less confusing. Why the spellings of day and eel as dae and eahl. Why is the word slumber used interchangeably for night and sleeping? Why is the sun called aurora? There was just no reason for any of the choices that were made textually.
The world building felt extravagant in a way that felt forced rather than clever and the writing overall was clunky and derivative. I figure myself a fairly intelligent human but when i have to read a sentence three times to figure out what they mean, its a hard pass for me.
She uses 20 words where she could have used 10 and for a book written in first person, the main character is insufferable and rash and annoying in a way that is not ballsy and powerful but an irritant. All of this i established in 11% which equates to around 100 pages.
I knew I couldnt continue on like this.

DNF at 22% because I couldnt deal with the really annoying FMC anymore. Her idiocy and prejudice were just too much of an irritant to be able to get through. If she called the guy a Hypsos one time I’ll scream. It was the YA book equivalent of using the N word and it annoyed me to no end. Coupled with the misplaced dialogue, odd plot, weak inciting incident and characters who made no sense doing the things they did or being where they were, I just could not handle this silliness. 

What is her brother sick with?
Why is she poor if shes apprentice to the second most powerful person in Egypt?
Why would the Queen Mother care who she is?
Why is Nefertari a villain?

A lot of this might have been explained later but i wasnt interested enough to get there cause the premise and initial chapters felt so juvenile. 

I received an earc from Netgalley. All thoughts are my own.

DNF @ 49% after some skimming cause it was trash lol

DNF at 38% because im clearly not intelligent enough for this.

What was interesting and clever about book 1 just became repetitive and confusing in this one with no obvious reason why any of this was taking place. I listened to this and while I was influenced by the narrator for Parisa and her irritating voice, there was just nothing else of substance to keep me invested.
I quite like Parisa in the beginning but she just became even more of a mean bitch the longer i listened to her and there wasnt any real reason why. Yes, coping mechanisms  or whatever but there was just no need to be this way endlessly if it didnt serve a purpose to the story or her powers etc.
Lets not even get started on the powers because she doesnt really explain any of them. Yes, we had explanations in book one but where was the growth of those powers. How were they used day to day, offensively, defensively. It was all just very vague and i was just over it.

DNF'd at 76% even though it really hurt me to do so but I just couldn't continue being so incredibly bored!

I'd heard bad things about this book from others but one shining light was another friend who really enjoyed it. I trust her judgement so I thought cool, maybe I'll be of the 1% in this case. Dear God was i not of that percentile! I just couldn't get into it at all and even with only 100 or so pages to go and being part of a readalong, I had no urge to ever pick it up. When a book feels like a chore, its time to say goodbye.

So, this is set in a world with an epic map and very little else. There are things called Spindles that are like portals I think and they can open into other worlds. One world in particular had overly tall immortal people come out of it one time, but then the portals shut and they were stuck in this new world so they would like to get back home. Anyway, some bad dude opens the portals and brings an undead army with him and of course this is bad so they need a special sword and special blood to kill him even though while in possession of said sword and said blood, they didn't kill him the first time. Aaaanyway, this prompts an immortal and an assassin and a squire and a princess to go on a hunt for the blood and the sword and theres where i lost it.

Despite all the above, absolutely nothing happens and you have no connection to any of the characters. There are too many POVs - 6 - and 4 of them are travelling together! So you read the same scene from different perspectives a lot, that serve no real furthering of the plot and its booooring.

While the map is gorgeous and there was some real potential for this, it just didn't live up to the expectation that the map gave. I commented in our group once that the map had more personality than any of the characters and how that happens, I have no idea. Its like the map was created and then she just threw some randos in there to have a reason to walk around.
Very disappointing indeed.

DNF at 76% because it was just not interesting.

This was a very interesting concept about the forgotten sister of King Arthur which I found intriguing but nothing about the actual story actually lifted off the page for me in anyway for this to be interesting or engaging or exciting.

We all know varying tales of Arthur and his knights and Merlin and Guinevere etc., so it was nice to see these characters in a different light i.e. from a different perspective but it just wasn’t exciting enough to warrant any real investment. The pacing was too slow so I wasn’t sure what we were trying to achieve. There were too many names, too many strings of plot that didn’t amount to anything and then the magic that was there wasn’t particularly appealing or seemingly well thought out.

There was little to no romance which again is fine. It’s not a necessity but I tend to lean on romance when other aspects of a plot or characterisation or world building is lacking so when there was no romance it just continued to get more boring. 

At one point, there’s a baby switching scandal that I’m still not sure why it was done because we don’t discuss it much again. There’s somebody switching magic that I don’t know why she’s done it. There was a blood magic book that she was able to read and I don’t actually know how or why she was able to read it. There was some incest that noone cared about so it was just constant confusion with no drama or action or engagement and it was just not pulling me in enough to continue or see how it ends because there was nothing for me to care about ending. 

Thanks, to netgalley for the arc, but this was not for me.