This book felt more like a nonfiction true crime book/podcast/documentary than an actual thriller. Even though I don’t really read/listen/watch them, I just didn’t get the feeling that this was meant to be a book? Maybe I would’ve liked it more had it been a podcast or a fictional documentary.

Also, as much as I don’t really want to say this – Paul Adams was not an interesting character. It was like waiting paint dry, if I may be so bold as to say.

I felt like this book kept hinting at something supernatural, like the murders or the murderer were something supernatural, but looking at some spoiler reviews tell me that’s not the case. And it just, I don’t know, feels like North tried to push that ‘is it supernatural, is it not?’ angle in a way to keep people reading? If a book is supernatural or includes a supernatural plot/characters – I want to know. I don’t want to ‘keep reading for the suspense’.

Did not finish at 12%

A Harry Potter reference. In a 2021 release. Maybe there’s more. I wouldn’t know. I wanted to like this book. It just, I don’t know, didn’t feel real to me? The characters and plus the tv show factor?

Like it’s apparently very popular but… she’s not popular at school? And I know it’s because she doesn’t want to be, but I don’t know. I kind of expected something like when Mia was revealed to be the Princess of Genovia (in The Princess Diaries) and everyone was suddenly claiming to be her friend to the cameras.

It also features the friends to lovers trope, which is not a favourite trope of mine. I rarely read and enjoy these ones. I think I really need to check to see if the trope is friends to lovers, because I rarely enjoy those.

This was a very quick dnf – I chose to mark it as dnf at four percent… that’s a very quick choice. I didn’t realise this was a spin-off sequel/prequel series to the original Trylle trilogy. It wasn’t really marketed properly.

I’ve only read the first book like years ago, I can’t remember if I liked it or not. The very very little I read of this didn’t really impress me much?
The formatting was a bit off as well. Several times if a book started with the letters f and i (five, first etc) it would disappear. So it wouldn’t say five but ve, not first but rst. I was able to get what the sentence was, but it kept taking me out of the story, which also led to me wanting to dnf.

I was really hoping I’d love this and read it as quickly as everyone else is loving and reading it. Unfortunately, I could quickly tell that this was definitely not the case. Straight from the beginning I didn’t like the writing style. It’s too awkward and Julie uses too many uncontracted sentences (it is on the table instead of it’s on the table).

In my opinion, if you do not contract, you tend to be more formal and uncontracted sentences are more often seen in fantasy novels and less so in young adult novels. I tend to sometimes not contract my sentences, but that’s because I tend to write a bit more formal at times. So therefore, even though I use uncontracted sentences and often did when I was younger, most teenagers do not. It felt weird reading them.

I wanted to be sad and feel the same way Julie did but I couldn’t get past the writing style and feel the same way as everyone else. The transitions from flashbacks to normal was also not written well, in my opinion.

I read some spoilery reviews, mostly to see what the paranormal aspect of the book was. I wasn’t really impressed by it and showed me I was right not to carry on. I chose not to finish early on since I wasn’t able to get into the verse style of writing. I’m totally fine with a book in verse, I just couldn’t get into this one.

Another reason was definitely the characters. I didn’t like Margaret at all. Found her boring as anything. Her friends were a bit more interesting but once again, not enough to keep me reading.

I was annoyed by the fact that we barely see any hint of any type of paranormal activity and I checked the reviews and some said it only appears quite far into the book and even then barely. Quite disappointing.

While I did like the lyrical parts and it could be soothing at times, it could also be a bit boring. The book felt like it was pushing the naval camp as this elite thing and that was also very boring for me.

I was reading by Chapter 12 and told myself that if, by Chapter 15, I’m still not interested, we’re marking it as dnf. And so I reached Chapter 15, and I still wasn’t interested.

I usually know early on if I’m not going to enjoy a book or possibly mark it as did-not-finish if the characters aren’t working for me. Either I don’t like the way they speak, the way they treat others. I also dnf early on if I don’t like the narration or if the 1st POV just doesn’t work for me. With this book it was the main character. Wren. I didn’t like her character early. I couldn’t get myself to care for what she cared for, get angry at what she was angry at. If she was interested in something, I could not get myself interested in it.

I also didn’t like the way magic and the magic system/rules were written into the book. I don’t know if there were any other magic other than healing and destructive magic. From what I read, healing magic was only to be used either in the military or in the clergy. I didn’t like that they force you into one of two roles in order for you to use magic. What’s the penalty if they catch you using magic and you’re not in the army or a nun? They kill you? That’s even more restrictive.

I liked Hal enough to try to reading (at least until 40%) but his personality didn’t shine enough to intrigue me. The plot played a disappointing factor as well. I was sort of interested in carrying on to see what the plot would shape into and how the characters played a role in it, but ultimately, it couldn’t give me the boost to carry on.

I really like anthologies but this one definitely missed the mark by a lot. I didn’t like any of the stories, I found myself flipping through a lot of them and decided to dnf it early and just barely skim some of the stories.

It was quite boring. All of the stories. They needed a lot of work. If I managed to finish the book I’d probably rate it a full 1 star out of 5. Maybe 2 if I were feeling generous.

I didn’t even reach the 5% mark. I tried hard with this one, but it was definitely not to be. It wasn’t holding my attention at all. I got through the first chapter and realized I wouldn’t be finishing the book, but tried a bit more. But ended up (like I knew I would) deciding to stop reading.

It was the case of the writer thinking they were capable of writing lengthy sentences and thinking it would work because they’re writing a fantasy book – it’s even more seen when it’s a high/epic fantasy book. It’s a very, very common thing to have long sentences for fantasy because I don’t know, apparently fantasy = long sentences. Some authors do it well and I’m not too annoyed by it. Personally I think we could without long sentences in fantasy or anywhere else. Like learn where to end one sentence and begin another (of course, I’m including myself here). Smythe, unfortunately, is not an author who knows how to masterfully create long sentences.

That was mostly the reason for dnfing the book. I could tell I would have this issue the entire way through and I wasn’t interested in having to slog through a near full paragraph and it just being one sentence. Plus, the characters didn’t capture my interest from the beginning.

Hopefully I’ll like the author’s other books because I’ve seen those synopses and like them. Then again I liked this synopsis as well so who knows? My main reason for not liking this book was solely due to the main character, Cal. I didn’t like him at all. I think it was how he saw the world and thought. And because the book is written from his point of view, we unfortunately see all his thoughts.

I did see a bit of Leon (the love interest) before I dnfed and I much preferred him and would maybe even finish the book if it was from his point of view. It also looked like a certain trope was in their budding relationship, one I very much dislike, so that was even another reason for me to not want to read any further.

Another reason I didn’t like Cal is that I thought his focus and idea of media and his view on social media was weird? Like he thinks badly of some media personnel because ‘they act a certain way’ (I’m paraphrasing) but Cal has nearly half a million followers and you’re telling me he HASN’T taken some type of media/marketing course or maybe acts a different way off camera so he can be ‘himself’ off camera? Maybe I feel this way about him because (to me) it doesn’t feel like he’s been written to have so many followers, if this makes sense. I also feel that Cal is a bit self-absorbed and he tries to show that he isn’t, which makes me dislike him more.

Oh, and also the formatting in the e-arc was really annoying me too. Bits of interviews meshed into the paragraphs and it was difficult to read. I tried to force myself to read it and fizzled out before the 50% mark. Once again, don’t force yourself to read a book! There’s no merit in that!

But then again, my best friend read the book and loved it. So, two different people, I guess.

Look, I really wanted to finish and like this book. But I kept reading a few pages of it and then putting it down to read something else. It was when I used the text-to-speech function on my kindle and realized nearly a chapter had gone by with me not paying a lick of attention – I had to dnf this, otherwise I was very likely to get into another reading slump. It stayed on my Currently Reading shelf for about a YEAR because I kept trying to get myself into this book.

So yes, I dnfed this at 25%. The cause? I guess not being interested enough? The characters were interesting and I liked the whole plot – rebellions are always fun to read about. It’s not that it was high sci-fi – I liked that bit. I think it was largely due to the characters – though they were interesting from time to time – it wasn’t enough to keep my reading.

Maybe I’ll pick it up in audio some time.