The concept of this book? Phenomenal. The execution? Pretty crude.

I tend to rate YA a little differently from adult because I know that I’m not the target audience and that there are certain tropes and themes that are more acceptable. YA nowadays is more of a fun romp for me, and a palette cleanser, not that there aren’t exceptions.
This book seemed like loads of fun, I really liked the concept and the plot kept me entertained until the end. There was great representation and none of it felt forced, and for a book that never dropped pace Bayron managed to stay immersed in her world.
Unfortunately, the heavy-handedness of the themes presented in the book were so clumsily executed that I laughed out loud a number of times during scenes that were definitely not intended to be amusing. Ham-fisted is an understatement; at times it felt like reading one of those ‘I programmed an AI to read thousands of twitter posts about feminism and this is what it came up with’ stories.
To give you an idea, there is a scene in which the (evil) king is giving a (evil) speech and stops to approach a random girl in the crowd to tell her that she should ‘smile more. you look prettier when you smile.’ KILL ME.
All of the ‘evil’ characters were comically sexist, and although I wasn’t expecting a particularly nuanced discussion of gender politics in this book for teens, it felt insultingly like Kalynn Bayron was trying to appeal to somebody who has literally never heard the word sexism before. Even as a teen, especially one born in this technological era, I think I would have been a little ticked off at the way that this was written.