For me, this book had a lot of potential but just didn't quite pull it off. The first part of the book was a solid 3 stars, but the more I read, the less I liked it.

Things I liked:
-The relationship between Kiernan and Sinda (for the most part)
-The two other "princesses"
-The world building/history of the kindgom
-Sinda's farewell with her aunt
-The magician who agrees to teach Sinda, I loved everything about her!
-The final wrap up of the book

Things I didn't like:
-How many times Sinda does things to hurt Kiernan's feelings throughout the book. Twice would have been too many
-Keirnan's motivations and actions when Sinda doesn't want to get help--it felt very unrealistic and I was rolling my eyes at his explanation afterwards
-The dialogue was cheesy and stilted to me often
-the character arc was just not quite there for me. It was fine, but it didn't feel focused enough (I wasn't sure until the end what it even was, there were several possibilities up until then) and the plot/character arc weren't unified enough for me either

Overall it wasn't a bad read and had some fun elements. Some of the things that are most important to me in a story were weaker, but I can see why some people enjoyed it so much.