This book really gave me mixed feelings. Upon reading the description, I was truly expecting something different. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing that the final product brought but there were some issues with it that I had. The first was that I felt like there was too much. I feel like this stemmed with the queen’s stories/point of views. Honestly, it took away too much from Keralie. Everytime a queen’s chapter appeared, I found myself not really caring because it didn’t seem to match what was happening with the other half of the book. While in the end it kind of explained what was going on, it didn’t settle well with me. The queen’s stories would have sat better as a novella giving more development for Keralie and Veran’s story. Everything with Keralie felt so rushed and I think it was because there wasn’t enough focus on it. The world was fascinating the way it was divided and I wish there was more a focus on that. I absolutely loved the ending of this novel. The twist in the end was amazing but it lost its purpose as the queen’s stories took too much filler. Other than that, this was so well written and amazing for a debut novel. I was really impressed with the world Scholte created and how the events progressed. It could have been stronger though.
The characters were definitely interesting. I loved how descriptive Scholte got with her writing because I was able to easily imagine each of them. Keralie was a fantastic main character and I really enjoyed following her story. She was tough and smart with a good soul, even with her background. Her chapters were the only ones that I really enjoyed and it was fascinating to experience the unraveling of the mystery with her. Veran was an interesting character. I understood how he acted due to the society he grew up in and the dystopia behind it. Another great development of character to witness how he changes as well. While I didn’t really enjoy the queen’s stories in this book particular, it was nice getting to know their personalities. It was interesting to see four different leaders really working well together to make their home a better place. I still believe that I would have enjoyed it more if it was separate from this main story.
The characters were definitely interesting. I loved how descriptive Scholte got with her writing because I was able to easily imagine each of them. Keralie was a fantastic main character and I really enjoyed following her story. She was tough and smart with a good soul, even with her background. Her chapters were the only ones that I really enjoyed and it was fascinating to experience the unraveling of the mystery with her. Veran was an interesting character. I understood how he acted due to the society he grew up in and the dystopia behind it. Another great development of character to witness how he changes as well. While I didn’t really enjoy the queen’s stories in this book particular, it was nice getting to know their personalities. It was interesting to see four different leaders really working well together to make their home a better place. I still believe that I would have enjoyed it more if it was separate from this main story.