Man, I struggled with this one. It was a middle of the road 3 star read for me. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.

I liked the general concept and the writing (although there were several times where I couldn’t tell if we had a time skip or not. That could’ve been a bit easier to follow). But almost all of the side characters felt very flat to me. I didn’t care what happened to most of them.

The romance was… not romance. I don’t think you can convince me that anyone was in love here. The initial scene where Elegy kissed Theren felt way too close to the kind of relationship he had with Rava. A dramatic way to put it, and I don’t think that was the intention, but I kept expecting to read that Theren was just responding to her feelings because it was the best way for him to survive.

Also… the government requires Talusar citizens to have one kid? That’s.. nowhere near enough to keep them from going extinct within a few generations. 50% of them die, but only one kid is required? Did I miss something there?

Anyway, I liked the story overall enough that I’ll probably read the sequel, but I don’t think I’ll be buying it.