This book was a rollercoaster that took me days to sort out my feelings on.
I was disappointed in this at first, because I have been highly anticipating it since it was first announced and have had it preordered for literal years, but I had a hard time getting into it. It was interesting but somehow the characters weren't clicking with me. I think maybe it was the love triangle? I despise love triangles in general (unless they all end up together and it's done well) and I think maybe it makes me distance myself from the characters a little bit. Whatever the reason I was sort of tuned out for the first half and even considered setting it aside.
However. Once I got to the second half I suddenly was in love with the characters and the setting and the plot and I'm really not sure what happened? Things definitely picked up - in fact there were so many twists and reveals in the last 10% of the book that my head was spinning by the end - but I'm still not sure what changed for me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it at first.
As soon as I finished that frankly explosive ending I immediately went back and restarted it to figure out where I'd gone wrong the first time around. And I don't know because the second time through that first half was so much more engaging.
I've been pondering this review for days now because I don't know how to rate it since my experience with the first and second halves were so different for no reason that I can figure out. But I think since I came away loving it in the end that I'll go with that?
The audiobook was well done and I liked the different accents the different characters had. The narrator did a good job differentiating the characters and bringing them to life. It was definitely immersive and kept my attention.
*Thanks to NetGalley, Bookishfirst, and Macmillan Audio for providing an early copy for review.
I was disappointed in this at first, because I have been highly anticipating it since it was first announced and have had it preordered for literal years, but I had a hard time getting into it. It was interesting but somehow the characters weren't clicking with me. I think maybe it was the love triangle? I despise love triangles in general (unless they all end up together and it's done well) and I think maybe it makes me distance myself from the characters a little bit. Whatever the reason I was sort of tuned out for the first half and even considered setting it aside.
However. Once I got to the second half I suddenly was in love with the characters and the setting and the plot and I'm really not sure what happened? Things definitely picked up - in fact there were so many twists and reveals in the last 10% of the book that my head was spinning by the end - but I'm still not sure what changed for me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it at first.
As soon as I finished that frankly explosive ending I immediately went back and restarted it to figure out where I'd gone wrong the first time around. And I don't know because the second time through that first half was so much more engaging.
I've been pondering this review for days now because I don't know how to rate it since my experience with the first and second halves were so different for no reason that I can figure out. But I think since I came away loving it in the end that I'll go with that?
The audiobook was well done and I liked the different accents the different characters had. The narrator did a good job differentiating the characters and bringing them to life. It was definitely immersive and kept my attention.
*Thanks to NetGalley, Bookishfirst, and Macmillan Audio for providing an early copy for review.