SPOILERS AHEAD, its a whole rant session below.

You've been warned.


starting with the positives:
1. i see promise in Lauren Roberts' writing. it's not good, but it's got the potential to be. I'll stick around for Book #2 for the sole reason that former lovers turned enemies to lovers trope is my second favourite...so...

2.it's entertaining if you're looking for romance in a somewhat Hunger Games-esque setting, but with a lot more sexual tension and angst and less political drama.

negatives:
1. FMC suffered from the "strong-female-lead-only-in-name" syndrome. homegirl used her 'smartness' and 'quick-thinking' all of 4 times across a span of 336 pages. And none of these 4 instances even INCLUDED any major fighting scenes/survival scenes.
I cannot take a FMC seriously if i'm just TOLD about their greatness/smartness/strength. SHOW IT TO ME. Paedyn (wth is up with that name btw) kept dangling the fact that she 'saved' Kai the first time they met...but let's be real, that was only because Kai was being unfairly overpowered. She is able to kick Kai's ass during their fighting sessions, but she takes several beatings from a middle-aged loser king? ok.
She can apparently use her vigilance to 'tell' many facts about a person: where they've been, what they did, what happened to them recently, etc. Basically a real time Sherlock Holmes. Except, she forgets about those tactics of hers in the Trial. Not ONCE did she use them against her opponents. Hell, she didn't even hang around her opponents during those few buffer days given to them before the trial to figure out their weaknesses, or just anything at all . instead, her days went by in flirting and fighting solo, and even then, the 'fighting solo' turned into some repetitive mantra of sexual tension and bodily proximity between Kai and her. she says that the thieves around and that's what she does best, since she's been doing that ever since her father died. did we see any of that across the book?

of course we didn't.

2. the chemistry felt extremely faux. ordinarily, i'd be rooting for the leads, truly. but if you're gonna give me sensational, sizzling, hot, angsty chemistry EVERY OTHER SCENE, it kinda defeats the whole purpose of it being angsty.
the worst part was that i'd even let this slide if the FMC was able to juggle her romantic developments with her very pressing survival concerns. hint: she wasn't able to.
it took her all of 2 days to get comfy at the palace, despite being the only 'powerless' person in there.
it gets a little too much to have so many scenes jam-packed in short intervals without truly giving the characters space to develop individually. FMC wasn't able to make any connections with her other opponents...and for what? that's the last thing someone without ANY powers wants to do. Since the death of all other tributes/participants isn't even necessary, she could've easily made pacts with some and called it a day.
its a little sad that we see none of her quick-thinking moments because they're virtually sacrificed to introduce some 'romantic tension' scenes. and even then, her quick thinking almost never picks up when Kai is in the picture. He wants to teach her how to slow dance in the wee hours of the night, follows her around the ball, seriously compliments her dress, mentions how his flirty personality only shines through like this with her, caresses her whenever he gets the chance to, calls her darling exclusively, nurses her back to health during a Trial, refuses to take advantage of her weakened state to take away her prized band (a winning token), spends all the medicine on her without caring about his injuries, lies through his teeth when he's questioned about his kind actions under the guise of 'trying to be a gentleman'...AND YOU TELL ME THAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A SMART BOSSWOMAN WHO NOTICES EVERYTHING AND EVERY LITTLE DETAIL? good lord.
She might've asked him about 7 times why he was doing what he was doing, and each time he came up with a lousy excuse of an answer, i wanted to shut this book down and call it a day. I've read silly little FMCs before (i was a wattpad girlie, can you tell?) but i absolutely can't stand it when its coming from a character whose survival DEPENDS on selling the fact that she's a Psychic when all she really is, is an ordinary woman with heightened abilities to catch details.

3. predictable plot. i saw the ending coming, so i'm a little confused over all the reactions I've been seeing under this book. the dorkiest part is that she is going to be hailed as the King Killer in the next book, and her actions are going to be feared...but do her actions even warrant this reaction? The King was all alone. He's middle-aged. He's taunting her. She already has adrenaline rushing through her. This really can't be that hardcore as the book made it out to be. As for the Resistance part...saw that coming too. Kai being her father's killer...saw that coming too. This is the generic YA Fantasy blueprint - who expected it to be any different?

4. her relationships with other characters weren't fleshed out well. Same for Kai. I do not care about Paedyn's bestie because apparently she doesn't seem to care about her enough. i also do not care about Jax because Kai doesn't intercat with him often. Kitt seems like a pushover character that couldv'e been given more depth if he had his own POVs or just more interaction with the leads in general. The king seems like a cartoon character. The trials are lowkey useless because you don't even have to win them, so why try? Pae could've easily just hung around and not done shit and she'd still make it out alive.


there's more but i think i'm done with ranting about this book on every social media platform so-