3.92 AVERAGE

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
adventurous dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was a decent dark academia story. I've never been super into the genre, but I decided to give this a try. it was pretty good. There was a lot going on in it, but I enjoyed it. I'll probably continue in the series.
adventurous dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Interesting idea, cool world, but just… lacking. 

The biggest issue - there’s too many damn POVs. I don’t mind books with multiple POVs and I’ve read ones that pulled off 6 successfully. This did not. It seriously hurt the overall world building and relationships among characters. I could not bring myself to give AF about any of them. 

Why are they doing any of this? We don’t know. Why are they still in low level classes, even students who’ve been there for hundreds of years?! We don’t know! There were just so many plot holes that the truly cool potential & story - didn’t happen. The twists 🙄 easily guessable. There wasn’t anything that truly shocked me. 

Don’t get me wrong, it was entertaining enough - I obviously finished it. Even though I solidly debated DNF’ing around the 60-65% mark. It’s just not something I think I’ll come back to or continue.
dark mysterious medium-paced
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A passable start to a YA fantasy series. I was intrigued by the premise, but the writing was a bit thin. Six POVs was too many; it weakened characterization and relationships, and also made it obvious who the redshirts were. (Also, a few of the voices felt SO similar to each other, particularly in dialogue.) The quick pace and  romantic tension kept me reading—but I do wish much more time was spent on each character individually outside of their 1 central relationship, and that the world building felt more original. 
adventurous emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
medium-paced

It's like a darker fanfic for Harry Potter. It's written good though.