Stunning and fun YA

I knew nothing about this book going in and it might now be a fav of the year. I loved it. I can gush enough about how much I loved Altamira & Ahn and their cabal of friends, the plot was fast paced and engaging, it really held me captive. I’m so happy I decided to pick it up because it truly was amazing

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Good book, but that male narrators female voice...

I was REALLY in the mood for this book. And I did really enjoy it. I'll start by saying that I combined reading this with my eyes and by audiobook. I loved these characters and this magic system the world was well enough fleshed out and the host of characters was HUGE.

I'm going to admit that my westernised upbringing and social contextual understanding of life really exacerbated my pre-existing issue with remembering who is who at the start of a book. I always struggle with character names, especially in fantasy, but I was surprised to struggle with this. I'm looking forward to reading more books outside of my culture to help bridge this gap.

I'll also admit that I didn't like the "time jumps" and what I mean by that is 'two weeks later we were in...' I've realised through this I like reading about the journey. At the start of this book I had no idea how they were going to fit this all in one book and that's how they did it. This book really isn't a physical journey, it's more several static points. I think I would've liked to see a lot more of the in between as I feel that's where a lot of character development happens. These cuts made it feel a bit like 'hey we've been together for a few weeks, we're friends now. Trust me' and while that's great I just felt like we'd missed a lot.

Finally, as I did audiobook this in parts, it's worth saying this was dual narrated. Ahn's Narrator was a jem and I will be looking to see what else she has done. Altan's narrator was male and while that suited the character I find male narrators have a very limited range. In this case he had Altans voice and inner thoughts and anyone else got this odd higher pitch? It was jarring, regardless of sex every other character had this voice and it really took me right out.

Overall though a great read which really tampered my craving for this setting and culture. Would reccomend.

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