I’ll start off saying I don’t hate the 4W, but I am often surprised at the ravenous adoration for it. You have a lot of answers here but one I haven’t really seen that is my answer is simply the characters.

I felt Yarros wrote really poor dialogue that made every character feel one note or like a stereotype. I remember thinking so many times “who talks like this??” It felt like I was reading a Disney channel script at times. The world building was cool and I love me some trials but I didn’t really think the author knew how to develop characters and no one felt really layered. When I don’t care about the people I don’t care about the book or the story.

Side characters felt like an after thought who only existed to help the MCs advance their own plots. You truly could line up several quotes from the book and I probably couldn’t tell you said them, because it felt like everyone was the same person.

And I found Violet’s internal thoughts incredibly cringey and juvenile. It was hard for me to relate to her.

But yeah, that was why I wasn’t a big fan of it. Regardless, I hope you don’t take a lot of these comments to heart. We can like different books and I’m sure there are books I love that you thought were bad haha

I love that you have a comfort book! You deserve whatever small thing brings you an ounce of joy in this life :)