I love fantasy but this is not the kind of fantasy I usually read. I like to make informed decisions about books and apparently every bookstagram account has read this, so I bought it. Side note I hate the cover art - why isn’t the title font just white? Why use this ugly lime green on top of red!? 

Anyway, at first I didn’t realise the Beauty and the Beast allusions were intentional. Once I realised that, I enjoyed it a lot more. The narrative feels a bit slow in the middle but it certainly does pick up. 

I can see why people stan this series. It’s compelling and addictive. The prose is easy, though the use of “loosed” irked me but that’s a very minute detail. The characters are well-developed and I never felt like there was too much going on, as I often find with large scale fantasy epics. 

As someone who doesn’t normally read books like this, I enjoyed it and will definitely read the rest of the series. I need closure you know? 

7/10 - I found this hard to rate! I don’t know if my book snobbery (I’m working on it I promise) is what’s holding me back.