Conceptually really fun book, loved the lore with the mist and gods. I thought the way we were given lore through very small tablets at the start of each POV was great and gave us just enough without dragging the book. Started a bit slow and reminded me of divergent, but once we were brought into the mist the story got 1000% better.

That said, good LORD the edgyness was so heavy-handed. Every other page was filled with lines trying too hard to be cool, snarky, with a dark juvinile witt or dramatics. Every now and then would be fine, but I just found my self cringing too ften when the book tried to step too far into the edgy mystique writing style the author was going for. For Kiara it was giving very much I'm not like other girls. Book are nice but I like fighting, daggers, the thrill of adrenaline during a fight. Blah blahl blah. For Jude it was sad boy hours, I have a mask, im darkness in shadows blah blah blah. Honestly they both had a lot of self-depricating, "im a monster" lines. It just wasn't landing as often as I'd like.

One of the last examples the author gave us came at the end in Kiara's POV: "...It had saved him. My Monster (she's referring to herself here) had saved him."

Again most of the actual plot points and obstacles in the mist were great. I thought they were intense, atmospheric, and really felt like an unpredictable threat. Excelent writing there. its just the dialouge and inner monolouges would sometimes ruin the tension.

I did just shit on the writing a lot there, but I actually did enjoy the characters and their relationship though. They had nice chemstriy, a good rapport, and when not too edgy they were actually both pretty funny at times. While I definetly wish the story wasn't so insta lovey, I appreciate that the relationship between Kiara and Jude didn't progress super fast beyond that love/intense attraction at first sight. It was cute, a nice lil thang.