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I think I would've enjoyed this book more if I didn't have such high expectations for it due to BookTok. The amount of people I saw describing this as “the best book they’ve ever read” is honestly concerning, and does this book a disservice.
*I wouldn’t call this enemies to lovers, there was never a shred of animosity form Kai’s side, and Paedyn only finds him mildly annoying/wants to punch his cocky smirk off his face, she never actually wants him to suffer or die, even in the beginning when she is disgusted after finding out Kai is the prince/future enforcer. I would say it’s more rivals to lovers (to enemies), and to be fair, that IS how the author markets it, only the fandom seems to insist on calling it enemies to lovers.
This is a very tropefied book (ex: enemies to lovers*, forbidden love, slow burn, “who did this to you?", knife to throat, dagger strapped to thigh beneath ball gown, size difference, morally gray mmc, love triangle), and while that might seem good for some people, and I enjoy many of the troupes included, sometimes it felt like scenes were written solely for the purpose of ticking another trope off the list.
I felt the same way about the dialogue, in many instances "cool/badass" lines used only for the cool factor rather than to further the conversation, making some (most?) of Paedyn's and Kai's interactions feel more like a flirty diss battle rather than an actual conversation. Their first REAL conversation - like, actually learning stuff about one another - happens around 47% into the book. The banter was fun at times, but it started to get old real fast, most of their conversations just felt like a repeat of the same witty lines, same with their internal monologues. This makes the pacing feel slow, the book could’ve been quite shorter.
The book has a bit of an issue with telling, not showing - we are constantly told that Kai is a monster, by himself including, yet we rarely see any instances of him actually acting like a bad person. Another example is how he says he loves his mother and feels close to her but we basically never see them interacting, same with Jax to a lesser level.
I did not feel a connection with any characters apart from Paedyn (who also suffers a bit from Mary Sue syndrome btw), Kai and Kitt. Some other characters seemed to have potential (Adena, Jax, Lenny, Andy) but were barely developed or even present. I did not mourn Adena’s death, Paedyn forgot about her and so did I.
Throughout this book I just kept asking myself - WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE TRIALS?? We are never explained why they exist. It makes no sense for the Elites to be okay with wasting their most powerful/unique children by sending them off to die. It would make a lot more sense if they sacrificed Ordinaries or even the Mundanes. They also supposedly made the trials harder this year to truly challenge the future enforcer but they weren’t much of a challenge, really. I think these issues are due to the lack of originality when it comes to the trials.
The author marketed this book as “if the child of Red Queen and Hunger Games had a child that doesn’t really resemble the parents” but I think there’s way too much resemblance when it comes to the Hunger Games (I’ve never read Red Queen so I can’t comment on it) - the concept of the trials in itself, the makeovers and interviews where she has to make the crowd like her to get votes (aka sponsors) by pretending to feel honoured to be chosen, the arena, the broadcasting, the eccentric presentator, the hand symbol, Paedyn being an archer taught by her dead father and coming from poor Loot Alley (aka the Seam), Pae and Kai becoming allies in the arena, the wolves scene (just like the mutts), them finding useful gifts around the forest - were 100% “inspired” by The Hunger Games, but without any of the significance and depth that The Hunger Games has, the trials are basically only used as a sensationalist plot point, and this made it very hard to enjoy most of the book.
Other random things that bothered me:
- where is the current enforcer??? he isn’t mentioned a single time, Kai is always referred to as the “future” Enforcer yet he already seems to do everything the Enforcer is supposed to do
- how did Hera try to take Andy’s leather if Blair had already taken it before??
And now that all that criticism is out of the way, some positives:
- I did enjoy the banter and tension, I just wish it hadn’t been so overdone
- I liked that it was a proper slow burn, unlike most “slow burns” marketed nowadays
- I liked the power system, some of the names felt a bit cringe at first but I got used to it (and humans would totally come up with some stupid names), most were pretty interesting and creative and I always find it fun to see how other people decide to categorize the different types of super-powers, I wish we could’ve seen more of that and the worldbuilding instead of focusing so much on the pointless trials and banter
Ultimately there was a lot about this book that can be improved on, but it wasn’t all bad. I think Lauren has some potential, the writing itself wasn’t that bad for a debut novel (please hire a new editor though), and I will always congratulate someone who has published a book at 20, that is a hard feat to achieve and it requires a lot of work. But for the love of god, less plagiarism please…
I shouldn’t have forced myself to finish this, and based on reviews, I don’t think I will be reading the second book, but love that she has decided to keep the series YA despite the fandom begging for spice.
*I wouldn’t call this enemies to lovers, there was never a shred of animosity form Kai’s side, and Paedyn only finds him mildly annoying/wants to punch his cocky smirk off his face, she never actually wants him to suffer or die, even in the beginning when she is disgusted after finding out Kai is the prince/future enforcer. I would say it’s more rivals to lovers (to enemies), and to be fair, that IS how the author markets it, only the fandom seems to insist on calling it enemies to lovers.
This is a very tropefied book (ex: enemies to lovers*, forbidden love, slow burn, “who did this to you?", knife to throat, dagger strapped to thigh beneath ball gown, size difference, morally gray mmc, love triangle), and while that might seem good for some people, and I enjoy many of the troupes included, sometimes it felt like scenes were written solely for the purpose of ticking another trope off the list.
I felt the same way about the dialogue, in many instances "cool/badass" lines used only for the cool factor rather than to further the conversation, making some (most?) of Paedyn's and Kai's interactions feel more like a flirty diss battle rather than an actual conversation. Their first REAL conversation - like, actually learning stuff about one another - happens around 47% into the book. The banter was fun at times, but it started to get old real fast, most of their conversations just felt like a repeat of the same witty lines, same with their internal monologues. This makes the pacing feel slow, the book could’ve been quite shorter.
The book has a bit of an issue with telling, not showing - we are constantly told that Kai is a monster, by himself including, yet we rarely see any instances of him actually acting like a bad person. Another example is how he says he loves his mother and feels close to her but we basically never see them interacting, same with Jax to a lesser level.
I did not feel a connection with any characters apart from Paedyn (who also suffers a bit from Mary Sue syndrome btw), Kai and Kitt. Some other characters seemed to have potential (Adena, Jax, Lenny, Andy) but were barely developed or even present. I did not mourn Adena’s death, Paedyn forgot about her and so did I.
Throughout this book I just kept asking myself - WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE TRIALS?? We are never explained why they exist. It makes no sense for the Elites to be okay with wasting their most powerful/unique children by sending them off to die. It would make a lot more sense if they sacrificed Ordinaries or even the Mundanes. They also supposedly made the trials harder this year to truly challenge the future enforcer but they weren’t much of a challenge, really. I think these issues are due to the lack of originality when it comes to the trials.
The author marketed this book as “if the child of Red Queen and Hunger Games had a child that doesn’t really resemble the parents” but I think there’s way too much resemblance when it comes to the Hunger Games (I’ve never read Red Queen so I can’t comment on it) - the concept of the trials in itself, the makeovers and interviews where she has to make the crowd like her to get votes (aka sponsors) by pretending to feel honoured to be chosen, the arena, the broadcasting, the eccentric presentator, the hand symbol, Paedyn being an archer taught by her dead father and coming from poor Loot Alley (aka the Seam), Pae and Kai becoming allies in the arena, the wolves scene (just like the mutts), them finding useful gifts around the forest - were 100% “inspired” by The Hunger Games, but without any of the significance and depth that The Hunger Games has, the trials are basically only used as a sensationalist plot point, and this made it very hard to enjoy most of the book.
Other random things that bothered me:
- where is the current enforcer??? he isn’t mentioned a single time, Kai is always referred to as the “future” Enforcer yet he already seems to do everything the Enforcer is supposed to do
- how did Hera try to take Andy’s leather if Blair had already taken it before??
And now that all that criticism is out of the way, some positives:
- I did enjoy the banter and tension, I just wish it hadn’t been so overdone
- I liked that it was a proper slow burn, unlike most “slow burns” marketed nowadays
- I liked the power system, some of the names felt a bit cringe at first but I got used to it (and humans would totally come up with some stupid names), most were pretty interesting and creative and I always find it fun to see how other people decide to categorize the different types of super-powers, I wish we could’ve seen more of that and the worldbuilding instead of focusing so much on the pointless trials and banter
Ultimately there was a lot about this book that can be improved on, but it wasn’t all bad. I think Lauren has some potential, the writing itself wasn’t that bad for a debut novel (please hire a new editor though), and I will always congratulate someone who has published a book at 20, that is a hard feat to achieve and it requires a lot of work. But for the love of god, less plagiarism please…
I shouldn’t have forced myself to finish this, and based on reviews, I don’t think I will be reading the second book, but love that she has decided to keep the series YA despite the fandom begging for spice.