Once you get past the killing of a rabbit and squirrel it gets really good, however with all of the story being explained and world building laid down I think the ending was rushed which is why my rating isn’t higher

Volition and cruel at times to show the barbarism, but also Maggie and Griffins blossoming love I liked. 

Ending felt very rushed and they def could have done the rest of the book differently for a better end of the plot

Easy read with a decently engaging story, but the characters are a bit one dementional and under developed. 

I think I had high hopes for this book because of the cover art and blurb on the back, but sadly I feel it fell a bit short. I wasn't a big fan of the the switch between 1st and 3rd pov with the 2 main characters. It was also written in past tense, which I think I'm just not used to, so it threw me off for a while. 
I couldn't really get myself to really like or relate with any of the characters and although there were some sort of cool magic ideas, the whole book sort of felt like it was all lead up to a different story. A lot of stuff seemed to happen off screen and then had to be explained to the MCs in the last quarter of the story.
Nothing horrible, but also nothing great in my opinion.

**Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an advanced e-copy of this book.**

Initial review on finishing the book: Y'all. WHAT. This book ended up being so good!? Some serious YA cliches which made me wonder at first... but the ending was sooooo good. And I became quite connected to these characters! 

Now, I will attempt to actually put my thoughts into a coherent review and proper sentences - haha! 

Wow! I ended up being so pleasantly surprised by this book. I was so excited to see a YA fantasy standalone, something that is not super common, and even more excited when I realized that it would have dragons! While I wish the dragons had come into the story a bit more, just having any kind of dragon in a story makes it epically better, don't you think!? But I digress...

Salvatore and Lewis did a fantastic job of setting up an intriguing fantasy world - one which mirrors so many aspects of our real world that it was complex and different enough to make you escape into the world of fantasy while noticing the many similarities to the hierarchy we have in our society. The history and the set up of the world helped to shape so many aspects of the plot. Things were happening because of past events and relationships - and we had plenty of information to link them and make some theories about what might happen.
I think that was one of the great things about this book. I kept trying to guess how things would turn out, and a twist would throw me off here and there. I thought I had it all figured out at one point when the greatest twist happened and I was FLOORED. I didn't see it coming. Some people might, but I thought that the authors did a really good job of making you like so many of the characters while also being suspicious of almost all of them... You can't guess everyone's motives or moves at every plot point, and I loved that for a fantasy book. There was so much court and political intrigue in motion alongside the magic, the romance, and the friendships. It was so wonderful woven together.

I loved the characters. They all had flaws in some way or another, and they were all realistic people. I was rooting for some of them, intrigued by others, and honestly wanted to be friends with a few of them. I will say the one thing that I found difficult was that there are so many side characters for a standalone fantasy. It was difficult to keep track of a whole host of characters at the beginning, and I easily mixed them up a couple times. BUT they all come to play a role in the story, no matter how small. I think some could easily have spinoff stories if the authors choose, and depending on the characters, I could be easily enticed to pick up their stories.

I will admit that I hope the book went through another round of editing, but I would never hold that against an arc and did not factor it into my rating. I did, however, factor in the few blatant YA cliches that were used... a couple are honestly mocked at this point so I am not sure if the authors used them in jest or not, but I feel like we could move on from some of them in the mess of 2021 and leave them behind... but alas, they definitely didn't break the book for me.
I think that the book does take a little bit to set things up since it begins en media res, but I generally like that.

If you are looking for a YA fantasy that is easy to follow, has great characters and court intrigues, friendship, romance, and DRAGONS, then I think this is a fantastic book to pick up - especially since it's a standalone! Perfect for when you want a touch of fantasy but don't want to commit to multiple books.