While I don't mind having multiple POVs for a book, I didn't like the way it was structured here.  Pretty much any important character was up for grabs as long it would give a POV that would let a section of the plot progress.  Because of that the book felt a bit scattered and frantic since we were jumping around so much.

Also, if I can make a Frozen reference, one thing I loathe about the beginning of that movie is the Anna/Hans romance "development".  Pretty much all the relationships here are like that.  "We've just met...let's get married."  (I wish I were joking about how long it goes from meeting -> proposal.)

The world with the different countries and the magic was interesting.  I'd like to see that fleshed out a bit more other than the people focusing on the metal magic.

The marriage of Leah and what went on in that household after she arrived was very disturbing.

Burning her at the dinner table for asking questions/speaking back, welding a metal collar on her so that it could be heated up if she "misbehaved", her husband smacking her whenever the grandmother would indicate she needed to be punished, her "inspection" after suspected pregnancy by the grandmother and with the brothers in the room watching her strip naked, the brother-in-law deciding he would be the one to consummate the marriage because he wanted to, etc.

It was a very uncomfortable section of the book and I was upset that she returned.  I never actually liked Leah as a character, but even then I didn't like her in that environment.

Naia was an easier character for me to get attached to, but she seems to have dumped her brain out the moving carriage on the way to the meeting of the nobles at the beginning of the book.  Her life decisions are motivated by pretty eyes and the memory of a kiss.  Alright, if I'm being fair she's also trying to get a bit of freedom, but I just can't get on board with the dumbness that enters her brain to do it.

Fel, I really liked.  He's a man of great magical power and didn't let his disability hold him back.  He does have an annoyingly long mope timeframe though.

River, I don't like because he pretty much imprisons Naia because of devotion and safety, but also doesn't communicate anything.  He says he loves her, and I know he's young, but he clearly doesn't respect her enough to talk to her after he's corrected about whether or not she tried to kill him on their first meeting.

Also, I don't know if it was just the digital version, but the book needs to go to a proofreader with the number of typos and partial sentences I encountered.  It wasn't enough to make the book unreadable, but it did have me wondering if English wasn't the native language of the writer or if the writer was young.

I'm not interested in the characters enough to want to see how the story continues so I'll be stopping here.  It's definitely a book world and plot that I wouldn't mind re-reading if it went through another rounding of editing with a publisher that could tighten up the flow a bit more.

The audio narration was quite bad! I hope others enjoy the story more than I did.

I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the next. 

It hurts to say this because I want to support any book with brown leads and I know the author (like all authors) pour a lot into their work so I feel bad but.... it was just so poorly written I couldn't take it anymore 😭😭😭😭

The writing was so strange, the dialogue is always written in this crimgey weird way, devoid of emotion and just... idk how to explain it, but it's not written like dialogue. Character interactions in general felt just, weird. Conversations would take me out the story because it was poorly done. There's little things throughout that were cringey and I just couldn't take it seriously, but I had to just give it up after the silliest event lmao, without spoilers, I'll just say it was so silly I couldn't put up with it anymore 😭😭

Oh, but things that dont spoil much: Only a few pages in, I was already getting annoyed as hell whenever the perspective switched to Leah. It was just so goddamn boring. It was a completely different events compared to what was happening with Naia, with this big mystery and all these interesting questions, and then we keep getting endless narration of this random as girl in her mundane meeting with her love interest, which took what felt like forever when I was excruciatingly waiting for us to get back to the actual plot. I feel like it could have been executed way better, but I also feel that Leah's perspective isn't needed at all and felt irrelevant. 

Also, there was so much contradicting with Fel when it came to his meeting with Leah. Literally, in one second he'd go on about how he's not going to pursue anything with her and they only just met like once and she's not that special, but then two seconds later he's taken the initiative and is the one flirting and being all forward with Leah. Like, he was made to be some dashing prince, even though they wanted a storyline where he wasn't supposed to pursue her at first--pick one? 😭 And I'm all for development, but there was none. We were just jumping around. Like even after he'd flirt with her he'd jump to once again there's nothing going on. Not even in a denial sort of way, just genuinely, refusal. It's so weird. If we're gonna go the route where he at first denies and then struggle to fight his attraction to her, there needs to actually be a transition.



With spoilers...

The shit with Naia and River didn't make sense either. I tried to rationalize her throwing away literally everything to be with this random guy she's seen three times (only 2 of those times included conversation) to go off with him, when she knew him as an enemy, knew there was a war coming, saw elves attack, meaning DANGER but still agreeing to go off with him--again I tried to rationalize it! Young and dumb freedom and whatever even though this contradicts her characterization as a competent girl good with strategizing and fit to take over the kingdom and blah blah blah. Whatever. The whole interaction was just silly. 

And also wtf is up with river 😭😭 he snapped his fingers and a whole tiny wave of fairy soldiers attacking dissappeared and says he showed up to stop it, but if hes so goddamn overpowered how did he let them even get there? but im more lenient on these inconsistencies because maybe somehow there's an explanation.. although with the amount of inconsistencies and illogical things in this book I doubt there is one

Another silly ass thing, River acted like they were out of time and they were under all this pressure so he had to marry her asap and whisk her away asap, because he said marriage was the only way to protect her or whatever, ugh, but then he says that hes gotta go handle shit and shes left alone in the other realm??? Like then what was the point of givihg her two days max to make her decision and saying you had to marry?? he even said theyd wait to marry for them to get to know each other what?? The thing that gets me is that if this was about protection and safety, why is she there alone when he said he was protecting both her AND her twin? and he can easily teleport and whisk everything away with the snap of his fingers so what is the logic of having her in the other realm?? 😭😭😭

also, this is a realm that humans / fae need magic to cross into, but its not a little house, its a giant realm, anothwr world. so when naia's father went looking for her, so how the fuck did he know where the fuck she was?????? Fel, her brother, could have told Dad she went off with the fairy, but they could have entered the realm and came out somewhere else. So how did he know she was still in the realm? Also, he has literally NEVER met River, does not know this fairy or who the fuck he is (and neither does Fel so its not like he could tell Dad who it was even if Dad DID know the son of the fairy king (or whatever its called) some how), he doesnt know where Fel's house is, so why the hell did the book have him just waltz right into that realm and walk up to the front door steps and knock?? 😭😭😭 NO explanation whatsoever, he just showed up so that they could fight and then left and thats it. And then i had to sit through their silly ass empty feeling dialogue i just couldnt take this story seriously LMAO. Maybe if i was 13 and still super into Wattpad, but rn I just couldnt im sorry.

The story is interesting, but the characters felt kind of flat and the writing was hard for me to follow. I kept getting distracted by too many "but then".

 

I had a good time reading this, but it is so aggressively just ok that it's hard to review. 

The romance is very insta-lovey and lacks any real depth. It relies on miscommunication and misplaced actions that just come off as really controlling and low-key abusive (which to be fair, is sorta called out and repeatedly complained about so there's that at least) to have any sort of real drama or conflict. Honestly the most interesting romantic relationship of the whole book is one that happened in the past and ended up fizzling out and then festering into hatred due to some messed up situation that we learn a little about towards the end. The character motivations and why they might be attracted to who they are don't make the most amount of sense other than love at first sight and in that way I got to know and make sense of these characters more through who they didn't like than who they did. 

It's not all bad though, as where this really shines is just the absolute messiness of the political situation going on. With kingdoms that have very clear tensions and a war bubbling under the surface, it puts our characters in positions where almost every action has to be calculated or they risk messing something up big time. Granted, our main characters are very young and in love and so shit hits the fan anyway. I think the best part of this was the slow unfurling of all of the pieces working in the background. You get brought in piece by piece, and there are reveals where you are given just enough information to piece everything together yourself before the characters come to the same realizations. Which is always going to be a plus for me cause I like feeling smart lol 

So basically, half of what was happening in this book was meh and the other half was actually really compelling and that evened out to being just fine. Still an enjoyable read, but if I hadn't pushed myself to get through the first half and if I was a more DNF-friendly reader, I wouldn't have finished this. Glad I did though, will be picking up the sequel cause this is one of those rare moments where I think the sequel might be a better experience for me.