Well, one thing I can say about this is it was highly readable.

What I liked:
- Realistic portrayal of the main character and her behavior as someone who comes from that kind of situation & background. She is not overly strong, she fails the trials multiple times, and people do not dote on her. She might be ~the chosen one~ but it's not super conspicuous.
- The story's really fast paced, so it's easy to get into it
- There are some part where she says something so completely self aware like "fuck these people. fuck this entire demeaning experience" like you're right. you should've realised this from the beginning.

What I don't like:
- The whole trial and tributes concept I find particularly tired. I'm just sick of it. Each tests felt contrived and juvenile. How do any of these tests contribute to creating an actual queen? It makes no sense to me.
- Also fighting to the death for ONE man they know nothing about is not it.
- There are characters other than Lor, sure. But we know nothing about them except for the occasional fact drops like oh this one character has a sister, or oh this other character is gay. That's it?? I feel no attachment whatsoever for the other characters so i really couldn't care less whether they live or die
- Where's the politic? Since they're so close to court, why on earth are the tests more about fighting monsters instead of studying politics? Shouldn't the queen be good at politicking?? The one where they had to study history was literally just about them memorizing names and family trees. How odd.
- Everytime I get to the smut between Lor and Atlas I had to immediately skip. Immediately. I don't like Atlas and I don't think the author likes him either. I don't understand the attraction Lor felt towards him. He felt sus right from the start and it would make more sense for her to distrust and dislike him from the beginning. Lor instantly liking him in this situation makes no sense and I couldn't for the life of me get into it.
- The trials have no stake. I know damn well she's going to survive, so I didn't feel like they do anything for the story other than just moving the plot along. I also feel like it would be better if we get to know the other tributes more. Caring about them as characters, actual three dimensional characters that don't feel like fillers who are going to die anyway would up the stake in my opinion.
- It is hinted that Lor gets into a lot of trouble back in prison. Yet she raises no hell in the sun court. Literally. What's her day to day schedule like? She has no question at all about how the court works? She doesn't go and explore the castle? Doesn't even sneak around? In fact she's been acting completely meek the whole time. Yeah right.
- There's almost no world building. The world building we get are just casual mentions of other 'cities'. But what's the actual history? The magic system? The power hierarchy between each rulers?

I feel like there are more gripes that I have with this book. Overall it was not the worst thing I've read this year, but it definitely could be so much better.