trope and world building we have seen a million times, and it was done badly. The only thing that was different was the quicksilver part of it, which was interesting up into the point where it just merged with every other magic system out there. The magic system was so poorly explained I just started making up rules in my mind for it to make sense. Why do individual people have these powers? How do they get their powers? Why doesn't everyone have powers? The list goes on and on and on. 

 

The absolute worst part of this book was Saeris, to the point where I was this close to DNFing multiple times. She is whiny, annoying, entitled, and just plain mean for no reason. Her “jokes” fall so flat and just consist of her shitting on people for no reason at all. Her little comebacks and quips are so cringy. She is supposed to be grown up and mature, but she thinks/acts like she is 13 years old. She insists on fighting even though she barely has any experience and is a weak human going up against FAE AND VAMPIRES. And SHOCKER, she ends up being a burden and gets everyone hurt or in trouble because of her stubbornness. 

 

She suffers from the same trope of “I don't want to wear these beautiful dresses, I'm unique, I'm not like other girls I only wear army pants and an old ratty tunic, I miss living in a poor dirty shithole hehe.” 

 

She demands information even though she has no right to it. She is not entitled to know these personal deep things but she acts like she should be the center of the universe for these people who are literally struggling with their friends lives. 

“Oh, these people just found out their sister and closest friend is going to be a sex slave and beaten for the rest of her life, time to get mad at them for not filling me in immediately!!” 

 

Carrion and Everlayne are the only likeable characters, so it's a great thing they are barely in the book! One of the reasons I hate Saeris is because she is so mean to Carrion for absolutely no reason. Like he does absolutely nothing wrong other than being 10x funner than she ever is, and SHE kidnapped HIM and forced him into another world and then gets pissed off when he complains even a little about it, which he barely even does. I got to the point where I wished Saeris would die and Carrion would start fucking Kingfisher and be the new main character. 

 

Its funny, genuinely so funny to me that she does not give a single fuck about her brother. He was ALL she cared about in the first 100 pages, all she thought about was saving him and wondering if he was ok. And then she doesn't mention him a single time for the rest of the book even though she has no idea where he actually is. He could be dead or starving and she is in NO rush to get back at all. Like I don't care if Carrion said he has an apartment and job, isn't the whole point of the world that it is super dangerous and poor no matter who or where you are? I am not exaggerating when I say she does not mention him a single time after the first 100 pages. 

 

Kingfisher was a fine character who was done so dirty. I genuinely think his backstory was interesting, but it was not explained enough for me to really feel the full effect. What ruined him for me was, of course, his relationship with Saeris. This book was almost 700 pages, and yet the slow burn was non-existent. Their banter was forced and cringe, the only flirting was him “smelling her arousal,” ew, and there was absolutely no reason given as to why he liked her at all. They just suddenly fell in love with no build up at all, and it was so unsatisfying. It doesn’t help that I can't imagine why anyone would love Saeris at all. 

 

I would also like to say, fucking KINGFISHER?? There's actually no way that's his name. There's no way the author sat down and thought that Kingfisher was a great name for a hot and sexy main character. It made it absolutely impossible to take him seriously, especially because every other character had semi-normal names. Ew. 

 

The plot and story was drawn out, and was so all over the place that it made no sense. There were so many things that were brought up and never mentioned again, not to mention all of the plot holes. It made for an unbelievably unenjoyable read. 

 

The story only got interesting when you were 85% through it, and it's a miracle if you can make it that far. It only made the book that much worse because we got to see how the book could have actually gone and how much better it could have been. The plot twists and action sequences were actually cool, but it was not worth sitting through 600 pages of bland infuriating nothing. 

 

All in all, the only way I will read the second book is if Saeris dies, Carrion becomes the main character, Kingfisher finds out he magically has a different name, and Everlayne takes over the world.