A bit cliche sometimes. But there were things I liked and things I didn't.

First up, this book was a normal length but it seemed so long? I felt like there were so many pages of just characters walking or traveling somewhere. Traveling to the palace, Alina running away from the palace, her and Mal walking for days, etc. And the part where Alina was at the Little Palace WAS SO LONG. I did not care that much about what the rich attractive magical people were doing because most of them were lame.

There was a little bit of the "oh she's special" in the fact that she's the ONLY ONE EVER to have this super special Sun Summoner power. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but why is she the only one? Does this work through genetics? Maybe this gets answered later on in the series, I don't know.

As I mentioned earlier, sometimes this book finds itself in YA cliches. Like, the whole thing with the Darkling and Alina just didn't sit right. This may have been because it wasn't relatable or because the Darkling was gambling his entire plan on Alina being straight. I know that's a weird thing to say, but wouldn't an immortal evil dude have a more foolproof plan than seduction? Things like that just seemed like, "oh let's put in this YA trope" instead of realistic ideas.

On the flip side, I found Genya to be a really interesting character and she kind of made the Little Palace parts more bearable. Most of the time, I liked Alina well enough (sometimes she was irritating or shallow tho), and the plot was decent.

By far the best thing was the worldbuilding. I was so impressed. The author does a great job of creating this universe and all its rules and customs. Looking forward to more of that in following books.

So did I like the book? Yeah, for the most part. Will I finish the series? Yes. Would I read this book again? No. It felt too long, and I wouldn't sit through it again just to read the good parts.