This was recommended to me by Goodreads because I enjoyed Wicked Gods but this was downright awful. Nice try, Goodreads.
*** mild spoilers I guess***
The MC began to annoy me a lot ever since she started preparing for the academy interviews. Initially, I was rooting for her to prove herself but after reading about how she was during the interviews, I was so disappointed. There is no freaking way that she will be chosen irl after all the typical responses she gave to the questions. She even cusses at the interviewers because one of the interviewers, the principal was simply asking her why she stood out from other candidates. Um??? This is absurd. Sure, the interviewer was strict but there is a reason why?! This is a prestigious academy after all. Guess what??? She somehow scrapes through to the second interview. At the second interview, it obviously goes even worse. She leaves her diary at the interview and storms out. When she goes back to the interview, the interviewers are flipping through the diary with the other candidate?! What on earth? This scene made no sense. Speaking of the other candidate, she was a stuck up and arrogant person. She only existed to be the stereotypical bitchy villain that stands in her way throughout the series. Can we stop doing this in books? If she is to be competitive, she could be more sensibly described. I have read so many books with the villain being described much better than this. Even Wicked gods was better than this. Anyways, she makes it into the academy because of course, she does. Why she made it, we will never know... unless. One of the interviewer's identity is revealed later on in the book and if that is the reason Sarah entered the academy... I am done.
Now, let's get into the pivotal moment of this book - when Sarah enters the academy. This is when she becomes even more annoying! She makes two new friends, Cyn and Jason. For some reason, she constantly objectifies Cyn but describes Jason completely normally. We have pages and pages of Sarah repetitively describing Cyn as sexy one moment and "ugly" the next. Apparently, wearing glasses and frumpy clothing makes you ugly and wearing revealing clothing makes you hot. Can books stop doing this once and for all? The fact that this book is published in 2019 makes it even worse. Apart from that, the only other personality trait she has is to hack into the school records. I was shocked she was not caught as she was hacking into the system frequently. I am convinced that the only reason she was not caught was because they simply didn't care. It truly amused me that she hacked into the system simply to change her name??? There was another ridiculous thing that happened. For context, Cyn is persistently being swarmed by guys and they just would not leave her alone because she is SO HOT. Guess what Sarah does! She kisses Cyn... huh?! The funniest thing is that the guys still come after her lol. A little after that, Sarah goes on to say how she would be attracted to Cyn if she was a guy. Okay??? You can clearly see that I am confused by these characters.
This review will not be complete without talking about the HOT (emphasis on HOT) Scottish boys! Once Sarah sets her eyes on the boys, she goes moon-eyed and she is like: Scottish boys are so hot and that the school must have some kind of hotness test for the boys. I can't- This was just laughable. As if Scottish boys are some exotic creatures. The dialogue of the Scottish boys also felt really off? I am not Scottish but I have heard Scottish people talk. I am certain they don't really talk the way these people talk. There were so many inconsistencies. One moment there are words like "yer" in the dialogue and then suddenly they just disappear. We already know they are Scottish, I don't think it is really necessary to emphasise that all the time?
Of course, these boys treat her like garbage all the freaking time without showing any signs of care and concern towards her, especially at the beginning. There really was zero chemistry between Sarah and the boys. I don't get how I was supposed to even root for them. Yet, Sarah is having wet dreams about them and obsessing over how hot they are. Being hot does not erase them being jerks towards you, Sarah. Towards the end, the boys suddenly become protective towards her which really does not make sense. It is like a switch was flipped in them suddenly. Even the mean principal was suddenly super nice to her. The characters in this book can't decide who they want to be.
The magic system in this book was incredibly elementary and boring. I liked that history was mixed with magic but it felt like it was not explored well enough. Sure, it was not the most original which I did not mind in this book. It is very difficult to be original when there are thousands of magical stories out there. I just wish we got more detail about the magical beings instead of being bombarded with random passages of faes and the introduction of other creatures right at the end. There was even a twist surrounding Sarah's identity which was so predictable. I called it right at the beginning so when it was revealed, I just ended up rolling my eyes.
The ending was so abrupt as well. It is so vague. If you are gonna put mature reverse harem as the tagline for the book, don't just put a random scene of all the four guys over the main character???
It definitely would have been more entertaining if I liked the characters. Also, this book was chalk full of simple grammatical errors which shows that the book was not edited well enough. I came here for a good time but this book did not give me that sadly. I would not recommend this book. Read Wicked gods for a more fun time.