Reviews

I was originally really excited to read this book as a lot of people had hyped it up, but I felt it did not fully live up to expectations. The book is well written, and the language very eloquent, which plays well into the academic vibe it should give. However, I felt that at times, it was too difficult to read, as the attempt to write about the science of the magic made it too confusing, I couldn't fully understand what the characters were trying to explain, and it made it feel often like it was trying to sound smart and confusing on purpose. As a scientist myself, I have read a lot of scientific papers and although I'm not a physicist (im a chemist), and not often read theoretical papers, I still found it too convoluted and got lost often.

The characters themselves are compelling, all having interesting back-stories and personalities. However, I felt like we didnt learn about any of the characters in depth due to the constant switch of POV (which of course, makes sense since there were 6 characters, so I don't blame the author).

For example,

Spoiler

we are told again and again that Nico and Libby are "two twin stars" and "a package deal", that you cannot have one without the other. However, I felt that there was nothing proving this. There was no ability that Nico had that Libby complemented or the other way around. They simply augmented each-other's magic, both being able to do all the types of physical magic, which failed to make me feel the need to have them both.

While I quite enjoyed the plot twist of who Ezra really was, and his backstory, I feel that it lost shock value to find he was the one that took Libby after we see him when Tristan is trying to see time. Ezra is not that common of a name to have 2 different characters with it. Seeing him in this scene already told me he was not the ordinary, normal guy that they told us he was during his introduction, so I was not shocked to find that he was actually incredibly powerful, undermining the plot-twist.

Overall, the book is enjoyable, as the characters are interesting; but the confusion I felt while reading the attempts at science, made me get lost often, and kept me from wanting to read the next book.