My brain everytime I saw this cover: Gosh this book has a pretty cover.

My opinion on it hasn't changed, even after reading the book the cover alone was in the listing of my top twenty prettiest covers of the year that I saw in books that were made. Especially when it comes to how I look at a lot of books and all genres and I really like certain book covers. This one was just beautiful.

So what went wrong?

You don't ever want to pick up a book read the synopsis and know the entire plot. That is such a bad idea, even in a romance genre book, they're still going to be a couple of those moments you never see coming or you think won't happen. The book back covers everything that happens in this book. Bummer.

As a result it became way too predictable.

When I went into research to find out how this book went about in the backstory I found out that basically they were in a positive echo chamber of people who supported everything they did. I definitely don't recommend having a 100% positive echo chamber. If your friends can't tell you that a plot line sounds stupid or it's already been done fifty times and maybe you should shake it up a little harder than you need a better constructive criticism group. I have a group of maybe five people I go to with complete honesty and they will tear me apart half of the time, and then build me up with a new idea and help me get back up on my feet.

Even the fact that she reviewed her own book drives me crazy, who does that? Just to up her review ranking even though by doing that she's going to dismay most readers and make her review go lower just by her own actions. Your damage control has just done more damage.

Oddly enough some of the author's own behavior has sort of slipped into how I perceive the characters behavior, the inability to handle a negative response really stands out to me. You got to take it on the nose and keep going. Not the chin, the nose, because if you don't take it on the nose you end up cutting off your nose so you can't take it on the nose. And this author definitely cut off her nose to spite her face.

It doesn't help that this comes out and it reads a lot like Lightlark or ACOTAR, So reading this was just like reading those.

I didn't really feel like they explained anything about these witches, like when they say things like violent witch and blood witch I just went okay different witches. Why do they have so many different witches when it seems like there's not a reason for this many witches. What is this world?
Oops, all witches!
It's just confusing.

My review notes on the many witches literally just says "I don't understand this world and I sure hope it gets expanded upon, but by somebody else". (Fanfiction writer's fix this mess, I know you can.)

Who the bad guy is is revealed by twenty-five pages in. I don't know how to feel about this besides it really lowered the rating and took away a star.

I hopped on to read it this and review it and I expected my perspective of what I read this book as to be a hot take that nobody else had, but then I scrolled through the reviews and realized that everybody else read this as a reverse racism fantasy 2 and I realized I was not delusional. The story is now whites are the minority basically, and I wasn't the only one who thought that either, goodie. Poor poor white people.

Those black people enslaving and mistreating the whites are clearly the villains and no good. Great. So the white victim complex slipped into this book. Good old bad idea racism. -1 star.

You could have done anything in your newly made up world and you put everything wrong with ours into it. So much for escapism fantasy.

I guess I just really don't care about white oppression. Which isn't the full focus but it stuck out in my head.

I couldn't find the antisemitism people talked about but I don't know enough about them to speak for them. I likely read past or it wasn't there. Other people likely can find it.

Also zombie witches are so stupid sounding in theory, but in execution... it's somehow twice as stupid. Who thought that was a good thing to keep?

1 star.

You can't just undo all of these mistakes by 5 starring your own work. Grow from your mistakes instead of trying to save this sink ship. ( )

Even as YA fantasy goes (and there are plenty of mixed bags in the genre), this book of zombie witches, cultural clashes, and science vs. magic has a lot of problems. But the funny thing is, I'm not sure it has the one problem it's been accused of having on TikTok; reverse racism doesn't seem to be the issue here, given that the whole point of the book (GENERIC SPOILER ALERT) ends up being that the protagonist has entirely misjudged the people who look different from her and been blind to the motives of those most like her (though I certainly acknowledge that, as a white woman, I may have missed some dog-whistles in there and am happy to be corrected by others who have read this). The lackluster descriptions, inexplicable reversals of character that stand in for plot twists, and--yes--the confused cultural dynamics are all issues that make the book fall apart under scrutiny. Compelling enough that I read the whole thing, with some truly scary scenes that surprised, but this really needed several revisions before it could achieve what it seems to intend. ( )

Dark at times and plenty gritty. The amount of bloodshed would merit multiple blood drives, but is fitting. The main characters drew me in and the sparks between both pairs are well done. Plenty of intrigue and treachery, as well as surprises regarding who has what motive, especially near the end. Read the author's acknowledgements in the back because it gave me a much greater appreciation for the word perseverance. I hope she writes many more books. ( )