Extremely problematic setting and the overall story relies heavily on a caste system and on abuse to create drama. 

One of my favorite Booktubers, Becca and the Books, talks about how she wants to read this book and that Sarah J Maas got the inspiration for A Court of Thorns and Roses series from this series. So, I thought that this book was good overall but there were some choices that I cringe over. We have a young child Jaenelle who is arguably who the plot follows where everything is about her. I was uncomfortable with how young the author made this character and some of the situations that she chose. I think that the author needed to take away the sexual nature that was attributed to Jaenelle as a child and should have used it later in the series when Jaenelle was old enough to consent. I really had issues with the fact that the author made Jaenelle a child but purposely made some adult situations that are awful to write about.

Now the magical world is interesting because there is a magic system that is inherently sex-based, where at the current moment females reign supreme and males are under them (at least in the living world). The world is also complex because there is the undead world. I think that the magic component was strong in this book and that the author should have used more time to go over the magic and develop it even further. 

The main aspect of the book involves the fact that Jaenelle is a small child that has a bunch of magic where she can do difficult magics with a blink of her eye. The book should have focused on just the training of Jaenelle and the adventures she went on, but unfortunately, that is not the case. Jaenelle is abused by her family and is put in a situation where she is sexually abused. The sexual abuse that was present on children is uncalled for and I wish the author would have not used that. 

I did think the magic portion of the book was interesting and that the author had a good idea with this book. I am taking into account that this book was written in 1998 and that the idea of sexual abuse and explicitly of sex on children was a different mindset than it is now. I think that it would be in the author’s best interest to update this series (especially if they are going to keep releasing books in the series).

There are a bunch of triggers particularly sex explicit conditions for children and abuse. I highly suggest you use a trigger warning website to evaluate if you are able to read this book because this is a dark fantasy book.