The mystery was not a mystery. The romance was not romancing. The fantasy was barely fantasy. The Dark Academia was not dark or even really academia.

For a book that's supposed to be about the MC's lost cousin, 50% in and no attempts have been made at all to figure out what happened. 75% and still minimal attempts! And you want to know why? Because it's actually not really that much of a mystery at all, so instead of putting the story towards that, we just get random nonsense for the majority of the book to distract you from the fact that this could've been sorted out with Fiadh asking her "suspect" once at all anything about Muriel. But nope, why do that when we can run around on a mountain or throw turnips at each other!

Literally nothing any characters said or did made sense at all, and the story was so shallow. You can't give me a magical secret society and say this person is gonna teach them everything, then show nothing at all. And basically immediately people are doing hexing? When they are explicitly told that will get them kicked out? What?

I actually chose to watch the Super Bowl rather than finish reading this book, and I hate football. So... yeah.

Thanks to NetGalley providing an eARC of The Lost Apprentice.

“Isn't anyone going to ask why it took only one wayward root vegetable to turn Blackhall into a turnip-fuelled fight club? Or care to wonder why we have so much repressed rage bottled up inside of us? Or ask what might be traumatising the future members of the legal profession they claim to care so much about?"

Firstly, "The Lost Apprentice" is very misleadingly being advertised as a dark academia novel, which it is not. it vaguely tries to mention how perceptions of Irish students from different cities differ and tries to build a disparity between Dubliners and non-dubliners, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Nor does the academia side of things—we're told that the apprentices must find time for both their studies and work, but I can't recall more than a few paragraphs in one chapter mentioning that they attend a class. Otherwise, we're just told how overworked they are and how busy the case keeps them.

told told told. everything is told, very explicitly, very clearly, lest the reader misinterprets anything. This book is very heavy on the telling, exhaustingly so. we're shown characters go for a cup of coffee after a cup of coffee—in the very few scenes we get at the law firm, that is—but it is emphasised yet in words that they have so. much. work. work that we're not actually seeing them do, we're just told it was done, behind the scenes, totally pulled all-nighters on all these tasks. This is particularly egregious at the final confrontation, but I'll get to that.

there' just so much to this book that could've been fleshed out better, developed with more depth, overall polished and made good, but none of it was. and i was very intrigued to read it! Ireland is a nice setting with a lot of potential when you mix catholicism with paganism (which was done, again, very briefly). lawyers who make deals with (maybe) the devil, driven by ambition and competitiveness? I love "Suits", sign me up!

but then it just didn't work. and i think a big problem is, at the end of the day and at just short of 300 pages, this book didn't know what it wanted to be, and ended up being nothing. not a romance, not a dark academia, not a modern fantasy, not a mystery. Let's break that down. I'll mark some sections as spoilers as they reveal key relationships or plot developments.

ROMANCE
Let's start with maybe the most bland part of the book—the romance. It's set up pretty much page one, with both Fiadh and Keefe's shared introduction. This is also where we establish keefe's nickname, "swan man" which continues to plague the. entire. book. even as they grow closer together.

The instantaneous setup made this so predictable, it kind of soured the story for me. He's introduced as a rival, but they don't really have a rivalry over anything? On the contrary, they team up early on. i was hope there'd be at least some intrigue with dawson ruffling some feathers (pun tragically intended), but nope, the conflict was minimal.

The biggest issue here, for me, was the instalove. When you put it all together, the story lasts a month—it starts with the "chill October" and ends in early november. There was no time for the relationship between Fiadh and Keefe to progress in a believable manner at the speed they were going along.

I don't mind them hooking up. If anything, that makes the most sense—they're physically attracted to each other, they're stuck with each other all day studying, working, and scheming. It's the same rules that apply to medical residents, where spending all day with someone might lead to spending the night with them too. However, the actual hookup chapter itself had issues, especially related to descriptions. those may have been overlooked by an editor and fixed in the final version. I couldn't tell if one particular line, identically repeated a handful of paragraphs apart, was a motif or an oversight. and for the love of god, after all that, why would she continue calling him "swan man"? i'd rather she'd called him by his last name, it would've put a powerful pin to the end of the story.

tl;dr more buildup and tension was needed, but due to the short time setting and the page count, it lacked space to be fleshed out.

DARK ACADEMIA
I have big gripes here because of how the book was marketed. Dark academia, to me, should be a critique of an overly romanticized, overly privileged depictions of the higher education system. The only place where I'd say this book gets it right is dismantling the romanticized vision—no, it's not good that law apprentices are overworked to exhaustion, and the book does not try to pretend that hard work pays off. I appreciated it, as well as the dedication to those who helped women in Ireland get rights to practice law.

In terms of privilege, there's not much done to tackle it. Nepotism runs rampant, and as far as I recall, every main character was a white Irish person. I think one of the rivals was implied to be a woman of colour, and Peadar's boyfriend is briefly mentioned, but not much in terms of diversity.

The education itself, as I've mentioned, does not play a big role here. We're told they're at the most prestigious law school in Ireland, but we don't really see other students aside from one small rival group, nor do we see them in actual classes. They reference a couple cases they'd studied, go to one lecture, then go to a pretend lecture held by the secret society. That's about it. Other than this, we're just told they're kept busy by school and apprenticeship, but, again, the plot only lasts a month. They've been here a month, we don't even get to have an idea of the kind of work they're doing in practice. They're just exhausted two weeks in and we have to believe it, because that's what happens to solicitor apprentices in this particular law school.

MODERN FANTASY
This is the part that was the most interesting, but also felt like it restricted the story a bit. O'Toole takes a very interesting approach in how the magic system works. Having the magic wielders craft deeds based on the norms of legal acts is actually really cool and I love that there's a need to be very precise, otherwise, the consequences can be considerable. I do wish more could've been done with the leeway of consequences, just to see how they look in practice, other than one spell countering another. I also think it's interesting that you need two or more people for an effective spell, otherwise the sacrifice can be at your life. Again, cool concept that was executed pretty well. The problem is that we didn't see all that much of it till the end.

I'm not sure the rule that no first-years can cast spells was that necessary, considering they did as they pleased; maybe greater consequences could've been done. Overall, I'd say this is the best fleshed-out part of the story, it just felt that we only good the good bits at the very end, and in very quick succession. It would've been nice to see more coherence between dark academia and modern fantasy—don't tell us they're reading about spells, show us how they find different types of scrolls and compare the writings to find loopholes. Give them more depth. Build on the intrigue and curiosity. You have a great, pretty unique concept here, but the potential isn't realised.

Sidenote: the references to hell were kind of goofy. Some subtlety could've been employed. It really felt like the author did not trust the reader to find anything between the lines and had to chew everything up for them beforehand.

MYSTERY
I'm putting this whole thing under spoilers given that it touches the disappearance of Muriel and the secret society.

Plain and simple: Muriel felt like an afterthought. Despite being Fiadh's core reason to starting this apprenticeship, she fades into the background pretty quickly. We are, once again, TOLD how close they were as children, but besides a single flashback, there's not much there. She's a shell before we even learn of her fate.

Even when the discovery happens, there's little intrigue or struggle to deal with her circumstances. Oh those get resolved the next page, don't worry, she's fine. She walks off the stage abruptly despite being pretty much Fiadh's reason to live, which was so strange? You don't want to talk about what happened now that you have time? Huh? I though you were basically like sisters, blood-bound to each other?

The secret society was ominous until it wasn't. Oh, sure, you could assume some of the people at the company were part of the secret society—how could they not be? It was established they were the best of the best in Ireland, going to the best law school, working at the best law firms, the true creme de la creme. But every single named character who had anything vaguely to do with law?

Without going into too much depth, the grand finale was such a slop of talktalktalktalktalkwemusttalkwithoutshowinganythingever it reminded me an awful lot of "Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore", a book with an ending where everything is resolved through a single character's monologue, who, by the way, invited every single menial side character for the storytime. It was painful to get through and played a lot into convenience of people being at the right place at the right time saying the right things and playing the right moves. It felt too calculated.

To briefly touch on the epilogue, I hated it. There's no other way to put it. We get a two-day time jump, where we are T O L D how Muriel's situation with her family was resolved, and in less than a page, we're supposed to be left wondering if Fiadh is rejoining the gang or not. Without even a single clue of her relationship with Keefe or how that might be impacted. A longer time jump would've worked better—or no epilogue at all.

A couple bonus sections of things I want to cover the really needed either more through editing or more fleshing out:

IRELAND
Ireland is, obviously, at the very core of this story, and there was much to appreciate—some tidbits of history, some lovely sceneries, use of the Irish language. However, the way it was presented, felt sort of awkward. I didn't mind as much characters not recognising certain locations—I couldn't pinpoint local monuments in Plungė or what the nature looks like near Ignalina.

It was once again the problem of telling without showing. You'd have character A and B, both Irish, speak. Character A says something in Irish, then themselves immediately translated to English. Character B says something in English, but a little while later also says something in Irish. Two characters speaking Irish should not need to translate into English for each other themselves. In that instance, it would make more sense to use footnotes for the reader's guidance. The characters are not confused about what's being said, and the dialogue is only done this way for the benefit of the reader, leading to awkward interactions.

Likewise, Irish characters tell each other about historical and cultural moments that the other would more than likely know, in a very objective, Wikipedia-article-retelling kind of manner. Perhaps it would've worked better if they shared sentiments about their childhood and how they did such customs at school or at home, to bring some sense of personality to it. It just felt like the assumption the reader wouldn't know triumphed over how the characters would naturally communicate.

STYLE AND GRAMMAR
Here's where my theory about a rushed production gets some weight. There's something very, very off with the style of this book. The persistent separation of compound and complex sentences with a full stop rather than a comma peeved me from the very beginning. i thought it was a typo at first, but it kept going the whole book. it really messed with the reading flow and didn't make a lot of sense. I can't say if that's what the final version of the book looks like, but I imagine so, given how much would need to be reedited.

I also think there was a very strict deadline and word limit, given the pacing issues. The story only took place over a span of a month, with frequent time jumps. As mentioned, some individual days, like the initiation, were given several chapters to cover in detail, while others we'd just get "a few days had passed" or "can you believe it's only been two weeks?" It really impacted the quality of the pacing.

Toward the end of the book, more typos and errors popped up, like wrong turns of phrases ("leave him go" instead of let him go or leave him be, small spelling errors, the likes), giving the impression that the book needed to be submitted ASAP, final checks be damned. It didn't give a very good impression of attentiveness.

Okay, we've been here long enough, let's wrap up.

Perhaps if this book had been a good 150-200 pages longer, it would've had more time to flesh all these topics out and be overall more coherent. Perhaps then the plot would not have been a handful of weeks shoved into a very short time, where four chapters can encompass a single hour, followed by a weekend-long time skip. even the epilogue felt cheap with how ridiculously short the time skip was.

I saw the author mention on social media that there are plans for a series, and honestly, I would be willing to revisit it! I'd be willing to give it another chance, perhaps with more POVs of the rest of the heron early squad, or a different group of solicitors in the same universe. There's a good foundation here, and I'm very sad that the execution failed so quickly.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

This book felt like the perfect palate cleanser. It kept me engaged the whole time with just enough fantasy to keep me disassociating from the real world. The author did a great job world building and I enjoyed the romance between the characters. I love a good secret society and enjoyed the mystery element but could have used a bit more on Muriel.

So sad that this did not meet my expectations. The characters are a bit flat and that makes it hard for me as a reader to connect enough to care. Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I got a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here we go.
I want to start by telling you what this book is about. We follow Fiadh, our lovely main character, and yes, she is Irish (which is why I cannot pronounce her name—sorry). She has just taken a job as an apprentice solicitor in a fancy law firm in Dublin, Heron Early. But there is a catch—she is there to investigate the disappearance of her cousin Muriel, who went missing six months ago.
Soon after starting, she and some of her colleagues are invited to take part in a test to become members of the SOS, a secret society of solicitors. She believes they might be the key to finding her cousin.
I guess that's the skeleton of it without giving spoilers. Hopefully, this review is free of them.
First of all, I would like to address the love story. Let’s not kid ourselves—there obviously is one. You can see it coming in the first chapter, and you can even tell who it is. I did like the fact that the book could go without it; in reallity it is not important to the plot, but it is kind of nice to have it there, and it adds some depth to the characters involved.
Fiadh is joined on her adventure by O'Keefe, Peadar, and Brigid, who all have their own motives for being there, and they start working on the same project. That's when weird things start to happen. All these random events make them think that someone is messing with them—and that person is likely a member of the SOS.
Things get very interesting around the halfway mark when the author introduces a magic system that is quite unique—and law-inclined? It felt very niche, but I liked it. It's different, and it makes it seem like there is some accountability in the acquisition of power and, of course, its use.
Even though we have one main character, the author takes a deep dive into the friendship dynamics, and the group grows closer under the pressure of working together and trying to figure out what’s really going on with the SOS.
Maybe a bit of a spoiler, but I wouldn’t consider it one—Fiadh has not told her friends why she is there. So while all of this is happening, she has her suspicions about who is involved in her cousin’s disappearance and who is entangled in this whole mess. And yes, she keeps it all to herself because she doesn’t trust anyone.
You would expect that keeping quiet would blow up in her face—but you’ll see if it does. I understood her reasoning, but I also found it a bit annoying because it puts blinders on her. She can’t see beyond what she wants to see.
Overall i is a good story, I ate the book up, I cannot complain at all. Having said that I would give it 4 star because I found Fiadh a bit annoying and the author tries to tick way to many boxes, but it does keep you engaged and it is a very original magic system.

A secret dark society located in Ireland? Yes, yes yes! I enjoyed this book and the storyline. The only reason why I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is that the pacing felt a little inconsistent for me. We can see them bonding in some scenes and then there are some jumps that make the moment feel rushed. Other than that, I would most definitely read a sequel, if there ever is one.

I really enjoyed The Lost Apprentice. I liked the academia feel of it and the magical elements. I thought it was well out together and enjoyed the characters.

I think this was a great read. I really enjoyed it. I felt the world building and character development worked well together to give a well rounded story and I enjoyed it greatly

In exchange for an honest review, I received an arc of this book. All thoughts are my own. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher.

So, unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of this. To be honest, I struggled to finish this book. The only reason why I did was because it was an arc I received. Which is a shame because I loved the premise of this. Irish dark academia set a law firm with a dark secret society. The novel is described as Ninth House meets Atlas Six. This sounds like it was written for me in particular. Unfortunately, like I said, this just didn’t do it for me. The main character, Fiadh, is supposed to be searching for her missing cousin, the reason the whole novel happens in the first place. Except the search for her cousin got abandoned halfway through and picked back up again towards the end. Not only that, but the characterization was weak and I couldn’t connect to any of them so it was hard for me to actually care about them. In terms of writing, there were punctuation issues here and there, which is fine, I received an arc after all. However, some of the writing felt very telling, not showing to me. The one thing I liked in this was the magic, I thought the more fantastical elements were done well.

Overall, wonderful premise, but I wish the execution was just a bit better.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

This didn't really work for me.

On the plus side, I liked the references to Celtic folklore and the details of Dublin. It is an extremely easy read and it held my interest until the end. It would be a good introduction to a more adult type of book for a young person who hasn't read very much apart from school books or even to pique the interest of a reluctant reader.

For me, however, there were too many minuses.

I felt that the characters were thinly drawn and I was not convinced by either the law firm setting or by the secret society or by the magic system itself. I felt that the legal references were too clunky and simply thereto justify the the Academia label. Possibly the book would have worked better with a university law dept setting rather than an attempt at the real work of work.

For me, there were too many coincidences in the plot - Fiadh's landlady who lives on the premises just happens to be more important than you might expect, almost a Deus ex machina really. This lady also just happens to be related to one of the apprentices but the connexion is not even mentioned even although they all know where Fiadh lives. As we get to the conclusion obstacles just fall away and not by means of the magic system. There just happens to be an amphibious bus on the quay and how fortunate that Brigid knows how to sail/drive it. Characters have unexpected changes of heart to suit the story etc., what is the point of Peader? One of the Big Bads is easily guessed but as far as I recall, the other one is not mentioned at all before he is revealed.

There is a very cringe sex scene which I felt was entirely gratuitous, although a plus point for the mention of the condom. I feel that these sorts of sex scenes where the mere touch of the man gives amazing pleasure to the woman gives young girls unrealistic expectations of sex.

Furthermore, I was shocked that the price of using the magic for (literal) dark deeds is to lose a piece of your soul and I felt that this price was dealt with in a very light "so what" sort of way. I would have liked to have seen something about how all this magic, which seems to be bottomless and and all powerful affects a long term user. We see a little of this in Joyce but it doesnt have much impact.

I do not usually mind about bad grammar but the number of clauses used as sentences is huge and became annoying to me. I found the changes of tone from matter of fact storytelling to flowery prose quite jarring.

I would not be surprised if this book is the start of a series but I would not read any further adventures.

I wouldn’t have read this had I known it has a spicy scene towards the end (not my thing), but I received this book as an ARC and so my review will be for the other aspects of the book :)

This is a very different “fantasy” book from any other I’ve read (I’d almost describe it as fiction?). The setting is academia/law firm and feels very much like the “real world” aside from the magic, but the magic system is super interesting and it fits into the story perfectly.

I enjoyed the writing style a lot; it’s elegant and sometimes poetic, but I never found it flowery. Imagery is done so well it almost reads like watching a movie!

The story was interesting and I feel like the pacing kept me very interested. I enjoyed the resolution and feel the setup for a second book is really great!

I enjoyed this book a lot, it's a short-but-sweet type of novel and I loved the pace and the characters. The whole setting is really unique and interesting, I personally have never read any books centered around solicitors so that's a first for me. Plus, I enjoyed the mystery and it had me hooked until the last possible minutes. With that said, there were a couple things I didn't enjoy during the story that kicked my rating down a bit:


· I would've loved to see more building on Muriel's and Fiadh's relationship before the disappearance. We didn't get a lot of flashbacks and I think that's something I would've enjoyed a lot.

· The wholeperiod pain plotline, while short, felt weirdly detailed for the importance that it actually had. It kind of felt like the author was maybe wanting to fit a lot of female rage on the topic but it wasn't that huge for the plot and in my opinion it read as too long and kind of weirdly introduced. I'm not uncomfortable at all with the topic, I just didn't like how the dialogue was introduced and developed.

· There were a couple of badly placed commas that made some sentences just not well written, but that was probably an ARC thing (I'm sorry I'm insufferable when it comes to punctuation signs)

Overall it was a good time and I'm curious to read more novels set in this universe as I think it has a lot of potential. The magic system is quite original and that's really hard to find nowadays!

PS: Keefe I love you SO MUCH you are amazing

I ended up captivated by The Lost Apprentice—Tara O’Toole has a knack for weaving an intriguing story that keeps you hooked from start to finish. The premise is fascinating, and the pacing kept me turning pages late into the night. However, while the plot kept me engaged, I couldn’t help but notice some inconsistencies that occasionally pulled me out of the story.

The biggest drawback for me was the lack of character depth. Other than their shared aspiration to become lawyers, I feel like I know next to nothing about the characters. I wanted to connect with them on a deeper level, to understand their motivations, personalities, and what makes them tick. Without that, the stakes felt a bit less impactful.

Despite these issues, the book’s charm lies in its ability to draw you into its world, and it’s clear that O’Toole has a talent for crafting an engaging narrative. If you’re looking for a quick and entertaining read, this one’s worth picking up—but don’t expect to walk away feeling like you truly know the characters. I’m curious to see where O’Toole takes her storytelling next!

Very fun! I liked the characters (justice for Brigid, my queen did nothing wrong), the prose was nice, and the secret society was appropriately creepy (just like where I did undergrad). The beginning was a bit slow (and not improved by the somewhat cliche character introductions), but once it got going, it got going and I was putting off doing my readings for the next day of class so I could finish this.

Loved the magic system as well, and I would definitely fuck with a sequel, bc I wish they had gotten to play around with it more! Show me the magic, show me the fucked up side effects of the magic, yes that was present in the text of the work, but I want more because I am a freak. Also would have loved watching them write out that part of the magic system, because I am insane.

My only complaint would be that it felt like everything got wrapped up a little too neatly at the end? I would have liked a slightly more ambiguous ending.

Overall, a fun, quick read.

I received this book from NetGalley.

Just finished The Lost Apprentice by Tara O’Toole, and I have mixed feelings about it. The book offers a unique blend of dark academia and fantasy, set in a Dublin law firm entangled with a secret magical society. The premise is intriguing, and the setting provides a rich backdrop for the story.

The protagonist, Fiadh, is determined and clever, driven to uncover the mystery of her cousin’s disappearance. Her journey through the competitive and secretive world of the law firm kept me engaged. The dynamics between Fiadh and her fellow apprentices, especially Keefe, added an interesting layer to the narrative.

However, I felt that the pacing was uneven at times, with certain sections dragging on longer than necessary. Additionally, while the magic system was unique and well-thought-out, I would have appreciated more depth and exploration of its intricacies.

Overall, The Lost Apprentice is a solid read for fans of dark academia and fantasy. It offers a fresh take on the genre with its Irish setting and magical elements. While it didn't completely captivate me, it was still an enjoyable experience. I would rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

An engaging dark academia novel with roots in Celtic folklore and mysticism, this was a fun read! Thank you to NetGalley and Tara O'Toole for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This novel was just the right thing to get me out of my reading rut. The worst thing possible has happened to Fiadh Whelan: her beloved cousin Muriel has gone missing and is presumed dead, and Faidh suspects that Murial's coworkers are the only people who know the truth behind her cousin's disappearance. To get close to these suspects, Faidh had to infiltrate the law firm where her cousin was working. Luckily, Faidh herself was finishing law school and was about to be assigned to a firm that would mentor her in her final term…the same firm her cousin was assigned Heron Early LLP.
There is something sinister happening at Heron Early; law apprentices are being kidnapped and forced to engage in death-defying tasks, all to become part of a secret society of lawyers who dabble in magic and psychological coercion. Will Faidh muster the courage and skill to pass these tasks? She must succeed in these tasks and get to the truth to find closure in Murial's disappearance.
I love novels set in Ireland, and O'Toole does a lovely job of developing a wonderfully detailed setting and subsequent atmosphere that successfully immerses the reader. This novel is filled with suspense, humour and a dash of romance. It's a perfect read to help get you out of a reading slump. Although a bit predictable, it was engaging enough to keep me reading, and I finished it in a day. I will definitely be on the lookout for more novels written by the author.

I didn't really know what to expect from this book, I just found the synopsis interesting. But it ended up being way better than I was expecting. The light magic was well crafted, the characters were interesting, and the plot kept me glued to the pages.

The legal setting was also well devised. All in all, it was a very interesting read.

A review will also be posted in my blog in February

https://peixinhodepratablog.wordpress.com/

This is a very interesting premise of a book. I loved the build of intrigue and the building of relationships with the other apprentices and delving into those stories. The writing was sharp and I always understood what was happening even when sleep addled so good job, the tonal writing is especially strong, the atmosphere felt tense and never broke even when there were light moments and that was sick. More than that the setting and world feels very whole, the magic system really fits into the world you have created and was a super original idea. I have to say i was majorly let down by the ending: the plot is made completely redundant by the last 50 pages or so, the entire infiltrating of the SOS and the company reveals nothing and then Oscar essentially just takes Fiadh to the person she's looking for the whole time and then suddenly they're in court and everyone agrees with them and the bad guys go away. Characterisation was super strong (the debating between the junior associates is an awesome detail that shows how they have had to be immersed in a law for years and have that thinking style to get to where they are and make them seem qualified for what they're doing) I did like the coinciding storylines revealed at the end but they aren't used in the rest of the book.
good ideas, good writing, ending leaves something to be desired.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book. Unfortunately, I ended up DNFing at 38%

This book has a really interesting premise: a secret society at an Irish law school that our group of protagonists are competing for entry into. I rarely find books that use Ireland as something other than a generic flavoring in fantasy, so I was excited to give this a go even if I’m not the biggest fan of dark academia. Sadly, I struggled to find the motivation to pick it back up anytime I closed my e-reader app.

My biggest gripe with this book was the writing style, which was full of sentence fragments that seemed designed for emphasis but really just made the narrative feel clunky and disconnected. The dialogue was easier to read, but I felt so little connection to these characters that I often had to go back and double check who was in a scene. There was also a lot of repetition - I swear I read the main character, Fiadh, complain that her new leather brogues were pinching her toes about five times in three chapters.

I’m sure this book is for someone, but it just wasn’t my thing.