I came so close to DNFing this so many times. I’m still not even sure why I didn’t. There are so many things I disliked about this book, from the way it talked about these sort-of mage vampires who actually weren’t either, to the all sorts of nothing that happens.

Pell is supposed to be this exceptional Wraeththu (attractive human boy who is turned into a supernatural, supposedly androgynous being through fasting, a blood ritual/transfusion and public sex). He learns made up words fast which means he can be promoted but also that promotion doesn’t really do anything so he’s still pretty useless. It seems most of whatever he learns he doesn’t actually use or it really serves no purpose.

There’s lots of gay sex magic but most of that is ridiculous. And also all the “we’re the softest parts of man, the hardest parts of woman” Bs. Gender means nothing, but then it also does apparently. He seems to be contradicting himself a lot. And two men make baby pearls.

So I guess there are trigger warnings for this book such as paedophilia (a guy comes along looking for pretty young boys to turn and then have sex with when they’re probably not even legal), rape, child murder, torture, etc etc.

In case you didn’t guess, I will not be reading any more from this series.