I was a big fan of Ikenna and appreciated how she's a genuinely strong, unapologetic female lead. Additionally, the trials seemed to be the perfect mix of gruesome fighting for life and death and entertainment.
This led me to believe that I would end up loving this book and for the first maybe 20% I did. 

However, the pacing is so painfully off I almost dnfed this. At times so much happened at once you couldn't keep up and had no idea what was going on and then other times this dragged so much I felt like reading a thousand pages when really I only read like 10.
Additionally, the magic system was complete nonsense. It wasn't properly explained, I still don't understand her bloodgift nor the politics or anything really. Her abilities seemed to be based off on whatever was convenient in the given situation. Furthermore, the random romance side plot enraged me. It could have been a really cool forbidden risky high stakes kind of love but it just made no sense. Why were they interested in one another? Why were they suddenly attracted to each other? Why would they care? It came out of nowhere felt entirely forced and therefore awkwar and stiff.

I dragged myself through the last 40% bc I had such high hopes for this and really really wanted to end up loving this but it lowkey just got worse with every page and was not worth staying for. The idea was fantastic, I enjoy the strong fmc but the writing didn't menage to execute the story and its high stakes at all.