Danielle > Recent Status Updates

I can tell already that this author is more confident and writing at a higher quality than 90% of what I've been recommended by booktok.

I'm considering DNFing due to what a chore it feels like to read this book now. I'm just endlessly cycling between new character POVs for people I don't care about, and all it's serving to do is give me answers that the main character doesn't have. This is a TERRIBLE structure for a "mystery".

This book is PAINFUL with the tell-don't-show to the point where I might DNF. Instead of discovering things through the story, we're shoved into flashbacks which just tell us the answers. What's the point.

The "tell not show" aspect is getting tougher to take...

Okay, I see why reviewers are complaining about the flashbacks. It's clunky and coming across as tell-don't-show.

I can see why some find this confusing to follow - there are lots of trips to the past, stories only half told and then we return to the present - but this is so much easier to follow than Legendborn that I can't be mad at it.

The narrator for the audiobook is a little odd...

this book is a mix of solid 5-star content, and then dragged down by a ridiculous timeline that deflates the impact (everything takes place in a week, no time for a sense of real connection) as well as terrible info-dumping via dialogue. and weird nicknames.

Putting infodumping in dialogue does not making it something other than infodumping... also I'm not sure why all these characters tolerate the FMC. She's a disaster (justifiably bc her mother just died), but like...these people are so tolerant while she RUNS out of meetings with them and gives no explanations, bursts into meetings with people she just met, demands info all the time... I would block her. lol

This all taking place in like a 5 day period is nuts to me - it doesn't seem necessary and instead makes it all less impactful. Also, why are both love interests white? What happened to classes and her father? There's too much going on.

The narrator sounds stressed and the narrative is fretful - but it's non-stop...the pacing is really bad. The FMC literally is just running from scene to scene and, for no particular reason, everything is taking place over the course of a few days.

Still not able to track all these characters and their roles...

It's gotten so hard to follow all the names and roles that I've stopped going back - if it's important I'll encounter them again... Bree seems to know a lot more than the reader has, or has an insane memory, which makes it hard to follow.

The info-dumping is hard to take, and the MC acts like it's normal to take in this amount of information at once...

I'm having a little trouble following the narration of the audiobook...hopefully it gets better.

Getting frustrated by how much I don't like the other characters - Zara adds nothing of value (condescending, should be ignored), the female cousin is hateful and doesn't see Demons as sentient creatures even though Zeylas saved her many times. Fuck all these characters lol