This was a solid 3.5 // 5 stars for me.
The biggest issue I had at the beginning was the language. Lora Beth shows how the language has changed within those thousand years with different spelling and their own slang. At first it's very daunting trying to understand what these people are trying to say but as I continued to read, I found it easier to understand the characters and her writing. This was a huge relief for us. I was seriously considering DNFing the book due to the inability to fully grasp what was going on, but I'm glad I stuck it out.
The other thing I had an issue with was the main love interest. Because of the language change and confusion, Zhade came off as a child to me. It was so hard to think of him as a teenager, or an adult, or however old he was. I could only see him as this 11/12 year old kid helping Andra with the way that he talked. Which is not what you want for a love interest. Over time, it got better, but the beginning was rough especially when trying to picture him flirting, which he does a lot.
Now, I didn't get fully invested into the story until 200 or so pages in. That's a lot of pages to read before I'm excited to see what's next. I had been mildly interested in what was going on before the 200 page mark, but the events that happen after page 200 is what really brought me in and got me excited to read what happens next.
Once I got into the thrill of the book, it was really good. Good enough that I want to read the sequel when it is released. Yay! This book isn't supposed to release until June 30th, 2020 so the early draft I got could have changed a lot in that time between when we got the ARC in November and release date. So take my criticism with a grain of salt on this one. But overall, pretty good.
The biggest issue I had at the beginning was the language. Lora Beth shows how the language has changed within those thousand years with different spelling and their own slang. At first it's very daunting trying to understand what these people are trying to say but as I continued to read, I found it easier to understand the characters and her writing. This was a huge relief for us. I was seriously considering DNFing the book due to the inability to fully grasp what was going on, but I'm glad I stuck it out.
The other thing I had an issue with was the main love interest. Because of the language change and confusion, Zhade came off as a child to me. It was so hard to think of him as a teenager, or an adult, or however old he was. I could only see him as this 11/12 year old kid helping Andra with the way that he talked. Which is not what you want for a love interest. Over time, it got better, but the beginning was rough especially when trying to picture him flirting, which he does a lot.
Now, I didn't get fully invested into the story until 200 or so pages in. That's a lot of pages to read before I'm excited to see what's next. I had been mildly interested in what was going on before the 200 page mark, but the events that happen after page 200 is what really brought me in and got me excited to read what happens next.
Once I got into the thrill of the book, it was really good. Good enough that I want to read the sequel when it is released. Yay! This book isn't supposed to release until June 30th, 2020 so the early draft I got could have changed a lot in that time between when we got the ARC in November and release date. So take my criticism with a grain of salt on this one. But overall, pretty good.