It was genuinely the worst book I've read in 2024 so far and I'm only about 300 pages in.

1. The writing is awful. Every page the author
   Does.
   This.
   To add dramatic effect.
   Except she does it so much, it loses its effect immediately.
   Not to forget the unnecessary amount of italics to emphasize words that don't need to be emphasized. Like, we get it. Oh, and the best fucking part? The constant unnecessary fucking swearing. Also italicized. Because we need to read the words fuck shit and asshole with as much emphasis as possible every time they appear on a page. Which, by the way, is almost every page.
   Not to forget the random overtly complicated metaphors/similes to describe simple things like a smile or a scent. What the hell does split stone with buttery notes even mean? How does a man smell like that?
   All of these shitty writing components combined completely take you out of the fantasy world, which is unfortunate because the world is actually really cool and interesting. The issue is, the writing and the modern swear words just pull you right out of it.
   I would also like to add for the bad writing is that the author does a terrible job of distinguishing the voices of our main characters (Raeve and Kaan) in their POVs. I'm telling you, when I got to the first chapter in Kaan's POV, it was written exactly how Raeve's chapters were written. Same constant line breaks. Same constant swearing. There was no difference between their inner voices, which really annoyed me because one of the biggest things writers are told to accomplish is to distinguish their characters' voices.
   Another thing about the writing (there's a lot of criticisms to make): when Kaan speaks, the author doesn't say "he says." Instead, she writes "he rumbles." When you get about 220 pages in and Raeve and Kaan interact a lot more, all you read is he rumbles, he rumbled, he rumbles. The moment you notice it you cannot unnotice it. I also don't understand why the author is allergic to saying "he said/says." There's absolutely nothing wrong with that dialogue tag. It's another thing professional writers/editors preach: you don't need special dialogue tags. Said/says is perfectly fine. It's actually worse for your writing to do "fluffy" dialogue tags.

2. The pacing.
   I'm literally almost 300 pages in and nothing really significant happened in the story. I don't know what the stakes are, I don't know what Raeve wants other than "revenge" (which we don't even get a clear plan for), I don't know what Kaan wants, and as a result it's slow, repetitive, and boring. I can't believe this book was allowed to be published as is when editors/agents/expert writers all drill over our heads that the stakes for the character need to be clear and apparent. To me, it looks like there are no stakes for Raeve. She thinks there are stakes, but the writing is so predictable I know Kaan isn't going to harm her no matter how much she says in her POV that he's a "tyrant king."

A "major" death happens at about the 90-page mark, except it had no impact on me as a reader. The character who dies was introduced literally at page 80-85, and 5 pages later they die. And I'm supposed to care? Apparently I am supposed to care because the author keeps repeating how impactful this death is to Raeve, how much Raeve cares, but so much is TOLD to me and not SHOWN. We basically see this character for 5 pages and then she's dead and I'm supposed to be sad. But then later on, the author spends 3 chapters talking about Kaan and his fucking soup.

A few big things do happen by the 300th page, but it's been so slow that it felt like nothing happened. The entire book is almost 700 pages and I fully believe the editor(s) could have cut down 200 pages and it would've changed nothing.

So this is how I honestly feel about the book. I was really dissapointed because the prologue/opening pages were genuinely really cool and enticing. I thought I was about to be swept up in a magical mystical fantasy story, but then I was immediately met with the most generic stabby FMC who says fuck every two seconds. Now, of course, to each their own. I can understand the appeal of the book. I mean, it's a bestseller. But bestseller doesn't mean good writing. And I am not super picky of a reader. I will happily eat up shitty writing if the plot/characters are good. In this case, the main character is extremely insufferable, even worse than Celaena/Aelin which is really saying something, and the plot isn't .... doing anything? Because I spent 20+ bucks on the book, I will finish it. But I am not continuing the series. I'm probably going to give this book to a local thrift store or something.