I love the universe and the story idea. I feel like character development could be improved if the story itself had more room for lore development. The series could really benefit from a prologue to bring more depth to the gods, clans, and powers. I find that while I love the story and have a desire for lore development to fill in characters (such as with Wheel of Time), I struggle perhaps with the age range of characters and how impulsive/flighty some of the characters are. I am keeping in mind this is young adult and am trying to avoid it impacting my rating. Some thoughts I have relating to characters include that I want to believe in the strength of each character, but the plot developments through the characters make me struggle with this.

I wanted to love Amari, but how can she challenge an Elder of a clan and practically kill her (do we even find out if she made it???) and then take claim of being an elder, gain no trust or loyalty with her clan she promises to protect, and then decide the throne was top priority? Then, she is confused in Zélie's motives as if she wasn't a firsthand witness, and a part of, her traumas? What? And I also question the decision of Mama Agba and the moonstone with the end of the book. Is this truly consistent with her character? Was the sacrifice even meaningful? How can this be sustained? The end seemed like it was amped up just to be rushed.

There are things that I struggle with in this story development, but I sure do love the idea of it. I have hope for the last installment, but I find that this story and its characters and universe could be so much more and I hope that this author will consider fleshing it out more in the future. There is so much potential!