I really enjoyed this book, once I started reading it, it was hard to put it back down, I was so eager to find out what would happen next.

Emily Bisbach does a great job in writing a dark academia element, it had that overall feel that worked in the world. I enjoyed getting to know Evie and the rest of the characters. I thought the clue element worked and was enjoying the overall concept of this world. I thought the art element was great and enjoyed the overall feel of this world.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the arc!
Hmm, I don’t think this book is for me. Unfortunately, I had to DNF pretty early on. Here’s why:

The pace is way too fast. There is no room to breathe, or to get to know the characters. Things just keep on happening, and we have no time to linger on details, and especially details that could help make everything more comprehensible. Reading this book is like being yanked offstage with one of those wooden poles from Looney Tunes.

Because there’s no room to breathe, I don’t care about the characters at all. I don’t care about what happens to them at all. I don’t care about the plot at all. I saw on instagram that the author cut the word count for this novel in half. Maybe she shouldn’t have.

As far as I was able to read, I still found the world building to be muddled 20% in. Yes, I threw in the towel early, but I’m a fantasy reader. World building is my shit. Usually, in a better written book, I would have some semblance of the world by now. I don’t here. It’s a confusing book for sure, but not in a good way.

So, in sum, the towel has been thrown in, and I have given up. I really wish I had more positive things to say about this book, but unfortunately I don’t. I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt in my rating, as I didn’t read beyond 21%. Still, there were just too many issues I couldn’t look past. -2.5 stars rounded up.