I absolutely loved The City of Dusk. It is easily one of the best books I've read lately. While the author does a spectacular job of world building, for me, the highlight of the book is the characters. Tara Sim creates a diverse and complex set of characters with tragic histories, complicated relationships, and unique personalities. Each of the main characters is well-developed (I honestly can't pick a favorite), and even the supporting characters add a lot to story. The plot is intriguing with quite a few twists that I did not see coming. The book is well-paced with multiple POVs, allowing the reader to get to know the characters better. While the book was long, I found myself not wanting it to end. I cannot wait for the next in the series. The City of Dusk is definitely a five star read, and I will be recommending it to everyone I know that enjoys reading fantasy.

3 stars

I adored the premise of this novel but it was very lacking. the world building was mediocre, we get told the names of things but never really explained what exactly they are. we don't really know much about the place the story is set in due to the odd way climate is dealt with. overall the world just felt very... reused? it's all things we have already seen before just melt together.

for an adult book the writing was very reminiscent of YA. many of the descriptions just left me very confused. there were many weird catchphrases that are supposed to be fun I suppose but just annoyed me.

for the most part i liked the plot and characters, which is what really saved this book for me. i'm not sure how to feel about this book overall but it was definitely interesting.

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The City of Dusk was one of my most anticipated books of the year and there were some things I really liked and some things that didn't work as well as I'd hoped. For reference, this is an adult fantasy book that feels a lot more like young adult, so I think it will appeal to new adult readers and people trying to make the transition between YA and adult.

First, some of the things I really liked. There is a lot of very casual queer representation in this book (meaning it's not a coming out story and there's no homophobia or anything). The ending came together in a really engaging way and I found myself holding my breath during some of the finale scenes. There's quite a bit of worldbuilding, both with the political and cultural setting of each region as well as all the gods themselves. I felt like this information was incorporated pretty well without feeling overwhelming or awkward.

A few things didn't work for me. Most importantly, this book seemed way too long and my attention frequently wandered, especially towards the beginning. I also found it difficult to fully connect with the characters because there were so many points of view and it switched too often to settle into one narrative.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this book, but I would still recommend checking it out if the premise seems interesting to you. The ending gives the impression that the sequel will be a wild ride and I think this series will probably appeal to many readers!

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for providing this eARC to review!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read an ARC of this book!
Ever since Tara Sim announced this book, I have been dying to read--and The City of Dusk did not disappoint! Sim always does such a spectacular job with creating incredible worlds and complex characters. I loved every page of this story and every moment in this world. Can't wait to buy a copy in stores!

This book is rather long, but in the best way possible. I loved learning about how this world works and how the characters navigate throughout. The plot itself moves along at a steady pace and there are many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, while others I was able to guess. However, that didn’t detract from my favorite element of this story: the characters. For this fantasy realm, the characters are what drove up my enjoyment so high in this story. I loved their interactions, their histories, their rivalries, and their chemistries.

Ultimately this book is an excellent start to what I hope will be a solid fantasy trilogy. I love the dark aesthetic and the agency that each character has to make their choices and face their consequences that don’t feel overly plot-driven.

A full review will be out on armedwithabook.com on March 2nd. A big thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for providing me this book in exchange for an honest review!

This book gave me Grisha Trilogy/ Young Elites vibes, which I am not mad about! Good world building, I liked the different POVs and the plot moved along nicely. I am a HUGE fan of visuals in fantasy novels. I need details of the Worlds to really immerse myself in the story and this did not disappoint.

While this book may be marketed to adults, it sadly reads as very young.
Characters are diverse, in sexuality and ethnicity.

On paper, this is everything I want in a fantasy novel -- multiple perspectives, meaningful and non-tokenizing diversity, interesting system of magic, slow build -- and Tara Sim definitely writes beautifully. However, this novel doesn't work for me and I've opted to DNF at 20%. I don't tend to DNF fiction that early unless it's for 'content warnings' related reasons (which wasn't the case here at all!), but with this novel being as long as it is, I'm opting not to keep going. This is very much a character driven book and I just... couldn't find a way to care about the characters or their relationships with each other *at all.* I also question the classification of this book as 'adult' rather than YA. I'm hesitant to give this a low rating because it's well written and there is definitely an audience for it; I'm just not that audience.

God, this book did so many things right. The worldbuilding, the influence from other cultures and then respectfully and integrating it so seamlessly into storyline was *chefs kiss*. As an Indian, the casual references to traditional clothing literally sent me. It feels rare and undone to be represented this thoroughly and casually represented like this in a fantasy book and I enjoyed every minute of it. Any question I had in my head about the worldbuilding - why do certain things happen, how does stuff in this world work - was answered, which I feel like is rare in fantasy books. Sometimes I will ask myself how the in heck does this make sense and then Tara explains it! I love that. I am a detail oriented person and I ate this shit up.

I know I am giving it 4 stars, but in reality I think I would give it a 3.75. The only drawback this book had was the pacing of it and the subsequent length of it. Until the last 10% of the book, the pacing was relatively slow steady and I will be honest - I was not on the edge of my seat while reading this until the end. It hurts me to even take away stars for that because there's so so so much this book did right, but I wish there was a sense of urgency in the book. Also, I was able to predict almost every single one of the plot twists in this books but I am also the person that typically picks up the little breadcrumbs and love guessing. They weren't over your head obvious, but I do think some can be picked up a little more easily than others.

Despite those two things, I loved the characters and the complexity of them, and all the nuisances they have. They all felt very relatable and morally complex. They felt like very real, very understandable characters, which I feel like isn't often done to feel this...raw. The writing is beautiful too - some descriptions were so pretty, I wanted to screenshot and frame them. Everything in the book was so complex too, like the politics. Everything was so nuanced, which I love. Also the dedication - absolutely hilarious. I love it. Such a girlboss move.

I want to thank Tara Sim and Orbit Books for the opportunity to read this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A deep and engaging read, with a complex and well-built world. The tales of the heirs wove together beautifully and I felt myself rooting for each of them more and more as the novel went on!

In the City of Dusk, Nexus is a nexus for the Four Realms – Life, Death, Light, and Darkness; each are ruled by a god and represented by a House. For reasons seemingly unspecified, the gods have withdrawn their favour the effect is catastrophic for the respective realms. Unwilling to be bystanders in their own demise, the four House heirs’ team up to save their city.

If you like vivid and rich worldbuilding, intriguing magic systems, and a diverse band of misfits (can they be misfits if they’re technically noble?) in a high fantasy world – this book is for you.

I want to start by saying the concept for this book is so cool and what primarily sold me on reading this ARC. It’s my first Tara Sim book, but fantasy is one of my favourite genres and the synopsis really sold me.

I really only have three critiques, and they are all for my personal preference:

First, I believe this book is marketed or tagged as adult fiction, when really I think it would do better as YA. The characters are in their early 20s, but their characterization reminds me more of those in YA novels. I think aging down the characters slightly – to perhaps 18/19 – would be more consistent in their characterization and behaviour.

Second, I found the chapters to be excruciatingly long. The description was really intensive, and while at times that was fantastic, other times it bogged down the reading experience. Add in that there were several different POVs happening simultaneously and it was sometimes difficult to stay engaged.

Lastly, and this point kind of builds on the previous one, I think a good portion of this book could have been edited down; to about 420-450 pages. This is the first book in a series, so I totally understand and appreciate the necessity of good worldbuilding, flushing out characters (especially in a multi-POV book), etc. However, there is a difference between need and want when including some info/scenes and I think <i>The City of Dusk</i> pushed that envelope a little too far.

I’m not sure at this point if I will continue with the series because of my current opinions on the structure/writing of book one, however the story is intriguing me enough to consider giving book two a shot when it is released.

I would recommend this book to others with the prelude that the main thing is the writing isn’t bad, there’s just <i>a lot</i> of it.

<i>Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.</i>

Well...this was definitely a book! It took me 80 years to sludge through the first 20% of the novel, only to realize that I didn't like it at all and I wasn't going to force myself to read anymore of it. This book felt very "The Atlas Six", which is to say it felt underdeveloped and confusing most of the time. I don't mind doorstopper fantasy novels, but holy moly - trying to keep what felt like 10 different characters straight over a 500 page arc was impossible.

I do think this series will likely appeal to a lot of younger fantasy readers, but it was not for me.

I will not be publishing my review to my blog as I did not finish the book.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"The City of Dusk" is an ambitious novel -- I would almost say too ambitious for its confines. With 7 point of view characters (albeit some used sparingly) and 500 pages to tell an epic story of a god vs god political battle reflected in a man-vs-man political battle... it has to make sacrifices to fit that all in without the book doubling or tripling in size. The writing is often very plain (he did x, he did y, she felt z), with descriptions cut, and relationships are often gestured at more than developed (for example, Julian's interpersonal relationship with Paris is very important for the interiority of what happens with Julian, but we never actually see it developed in any way). It trims all the fat from the book to fit into one book at all. And while I'd rather have a book that's too ambitious instead of one that's not ambitious enough, and while I very much enjoyed this, I do think it suffers for it at times.

The main area it struggles with this is that a number of things are left vague or just directly handed to the plot when they could have benefited from growing out of the characters interiority more. Sim still does make all the main characters' needs and motivations tied into the plot, don't get me wrong, but it's written like we're watching it happen to the characters more than like we're experiencing it with them. The result of this is that when there are contradictions, it's not always clear if it's for expediency, or if it's meant to read as deliberate, such as with a character's hypocrisy (for example - at one point Risha refuses to give a friend some bone shards for magical purposes as it'd be immoral to take them from the dead, but later she is walking around with some human bone shards she'll magically attack with if she needs to, and this contradiction isn't mentioned in the text). Likewise, a lot of the twists are discovered by the characters through chance or other characters expositing at them, while I feel that if they'd actively investigated and their actions led to them uncovering the information it would have been stronger. And because of this, it wasn't always clear why these characters were telling each other things -- why Taesia would include Angelica (who she doesn't get along with) in the information sharing early on, why Jas would talk to Risha so openly, etc. The setups for these are quick and brief and relies on the reader to take it on faith because we don't have a lot of time to build out the reasonings.

That said, I liked it, don't get me wrong! I think this was less a weakness inherent in the writing and more a deliberate trade off that was made to still include everything Sim wanted to fit into the first book, which is epic and exciting, and decisions like that will always have parts that work and parts that don't. While it's possible that other developmental edits could have been made to focus down and expand these areas I mentioned, there would have had to be different trade offs to do so, and I don't know if it could have pulled off the intense and exciting sequences through the last third of the book if it had focused more on the minutia and less on the epic.

I enjoyed the worldbuilding quite a bit. The mythology was strong, and flavored the entire world, and I genuinely felt like these characters could have come from it. Yes, there were occasional vaguenesses in it that I see other reviewers have mentioned. But imo it did as much specificity or more than many fantasy novels, and if there was some disjoint between understanding how (for example) exactly the system of government worked and how they got things done, this is super common in fantasy. And I'm way more reluctant to put weight on those handwaved spots in an Asian-centric fantasy, lol! We as Western readers are more ready to handwave certain elements of worldbuilding in Western fantasy that we vaguely 'recognize' from media, and the fact that we may not recognize the similar gaps in another setting may be less on the author and more on our own upbringing.

I'm really intrigued by the point this book leaves off and I definitely plan to read the next one.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

"Inside his chest his heart still throbbed, reminding him he was alive, alive, monstrous but alive."

This story had so many quotes that expressed the exact extent of the situation the characters were in. I absolutely loved the writing.

The story follows the city of dusk ruled by four houses, each led by a god and their heir. When the gods step away from the city, the heirs must work together in order to save it but at a cost.

One thing I will mention is that the storyline was kind of tricky to follow for a majority of the book because of how many characters there were. It seemed like I constantly had to go back and reread certain parts or even chapters to understand what was happening, or who was doing what.

Overall, I believe that this was a very solid fantasy read and am very excited to see where the author takes this series next!

First, thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for the eARC!

This book was a wild ride. It's very big and very ambitious and also, in my opinion, very cool. The variety of magic systems and dynamics between the characters were delightful, and I thought the ~reveal~ at the end was very clever.

The City of Dusk is somewhere between new adult and adult fantasy. There were a handful of slightly rougher patches which read more like YA (this is not a YA book though!!) but I think that mostly has to do with the fact this is an adult debut, and these rough spots didn't detract from the overall story. I also think that it really evened out in the last part, so I think by the time the second book in the series comes out it will be a non-issue.

The beginning of this book pulled me in, and while I thought maybe the middle two parts dragged just a bit, by the time I got to the last quarter of the book I flew through it in a frenzy because I was really intrigued, and looking back on it I think even though there were parts that dragged, they ultimately paid off, so I cannot complain. My only real complaint is that, at times, I had to remind myself that these characters are in their early twenties, and are not teenagers. But, again, I think Sim has found her footing and I'm very excited to see what the next book will bring. Also: I was really into the queer rep in this book. It was exactly what I wanted from a book, any book, during the time period I read this.

Ultimately, I think this was a really good debut into adult fantasy, and again, I'm really excited for the next installment!

Really enjoyed this queer fantasy ~odyssey~ that Tara Sim took on - it was a fun (dark, so dark) read that was surprisingly quick given the length. I wish there had been more descriptive language over the dialogue-heavy content of the book, which is new for me, but I felt like I had a bit of trouble keeping track of what, exactly, was going on sometimes.

i received an arc of this title in exchange for an honest review. thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read this book in advance of its release.

4.5 stars!!! this one was slightly slow going at the beginning, but about the 15% mark i was like oop this is getting interesting

it took my forever to read because i've had a rough month health wise and like i've been really tired so reading hasn't been a priority but honestly i'm so glad i got the chance to read this one!!!! i am interested to see how the rest of the series plays out, especially considering the ending and now that everyone is scattered all over the place/maybe dead? i need to know what happens next!!!!

there were a lot of moments where i was wanting to shake some of these characters so hard for their decisions, but i really like most of the characters that we follow!!! is anyone surprised that julian is my favorite???? i'm not surprised :) i need the entire next novel to be about him and taesia pls <3

sometimes going from character to character was a bit jolting, but i think overall, it was necessary for the story. it isn't a full 5 stars because there was some pacing issues, especially near the end. i felt like a lot of what was taking place in the last few chapters was going by so quickly i could barely keep up with what was happening, but maybe that was just me? or, if it was intentional, it may be fixed before the published final copy.

The City of Dusk is the first in a new epic fantasy series by author Tara Sim, an author I'd previously enjoyed for her Scavenge the Stars duology (Review of the first book Here). That duology was a really well done YA fantasy (sorta) take on the Count of Monte Cristo, although its second book very much felt like it kind of rushed through the ending (especially with how many pieces it has juggling in the air) so that the story could fit into a duology instead of a trilogy. But naturally it made me want to read more from Sim, so I was excited to get an early look at this book.

And well, The City of Dusk may be a much longer book than either book in the Scavenge the Stars duology, as you'd expect from epic fantasy, but it has many of the same pluses and negatives as that series. The book features four-five main characters, from whose perspectives the story gets told, each of whom have their own issues and wants even as they ostensibly want the same thing in a fantasy world that is seemingly dying due to being cutoff by their gods. But each of them, as well as a number of other characters, and the antagonists, have so many things going on that it's hard sometimes to keep track, and some character interactions feel like they should get a larger amount of pagetime, and the book just doesn't have enough for it all, leading to a climax that feels insanely hectic and a bit too confusing, at least to me. Still the character work is generally very good, and I liked so many of the characters, so I'll be back for the sequel to see if it improves (like another epic fantasy trilogy that this kind of reminds me of).

More specifics after the jump:



-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
For ages, the four Realms - Vitae, the Realm of the Elements/Life; Mortri, the Realm of Death; Solara, the Realm of Light; and Noctus, the Realm of Darkness - were all connected with the Nexus realm, particularly to the city of Vaega at its center, the City of Dusk. People from all the realms traveled between each other, and upon people dying, their spirits traveled from the nexus to Mortri for rest.

And then years past, the gods of each of the realms broke the connection and placed a barrier around the Nexus, trapping the living from the realms inside the Nexus, and preventing the dead of Nexus from passing on. And to those in the know it is very clear that the result is inevitable: that Nexus is dying from its loss of connection.

Inside the City of Dusk, there stands a monarchy as well as Four Houses descended in part from one of the four gods, each gifted with their god's magic from their lost realms. The Houses are supposed to hate each other, but their current heirs - Risha, a necromancer desperate to open the ways; Angelica, an elementalist who wants power but can't seem to access it without a crutch; Nik, a soldier of Light who can't measure up to the power of his dead brother; and Dante and Taesia, shadow wielders who wish to upend the monarchy and help the common people and realm refugees - are far closer to each other than anyone realizes. And so when a forbidden and heretical magic offers the possibility of breaking the barrier, they make a plan to work together....even if they each intend to use the magic for their own ends.

But this magic is forbidden for a reason and more people than they realize have plans for Nexus and this magic, plans that will put all of the city at risk and threaten to destroy everything that they each care about.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The City of Dusk is a story that jumps between a number of third person perspectives - most commonly that of Risha, Angelica, Nik, and Taesia, but a number of others show up as well, with one additional character sort of joining those four as main characters by the book's second or third act. It's a style that jumps frequently between viewpoints within a single chapter (as opposed to the classic each chapter narrated by a single character whose name appears at the top style) and really helps exemplify how chaotic and hectic this book is - this is a book with a lot of characters and factions with various interests, for good or bad, all squabbling and sometimes outright fighting over the same goal, and the constant shifting really helps make clear how everything is in fact all over the place, no matter what any one character thinks.

Of course there is such a thing as too chaotic, and The City of Dusk manages to generally (see below) not go too far in that direction thanks to its tremendous characters, all of whom are really interesting, different, and easy to care about. All four of the original main characters are distinct in their characters, their wants and desires, and how they were shaped by tough childhoods that were not helped by their parents - and two of them, Angelica and Nik, have downright emotionally abusive parents, while the other two Taesia and Risha just have parents who put pressure on them (and try to marry off Risha against her will). In Angelica, you have a young woman who has been told that she should be more easily able to use her power without the crutch of the instruments she loves, and a mother and god who browbeat her about it and push her into trying for a position of power she barely realizes she doesn't really want. In Nik you have the boy who feels guilty for his brother's death, a death that broke his mother with grief, and left his father - who always hated him for lacking in power - bitter and angry that Nik is all that's left, leaving Nik unable to accept his grief and always hoping somehow he'll be able to prove himself better. With Risha, you have a girl desperate to do anything to break through the barrier to let through the adrift spirits, despite each attempt coming in failure, whose only solace is how much she loves her friends. And with Taesia you have the girl who cares so much about everyone, especially those who have been cast off by their system of nobles and Houses, and whose savior complex is only reined in by her older brother, such that when he's taken away, Taesia has no one to stop her from acting recklessly with her power, and boy does she have a good amount of power with her shadows.

They're a quartet - and really I should also expand that to include several other characters except this review is going to be too long if I do - that has a lot of pressures, to go along with not a lot of experience, which results in them doing some very very often stupid and reckless things. And I don't mean stupid in like childish teenage pranks, because these are teens with complexes about their roles in life, their roles as saviors and powers, and way too much magical power that can be used to lethal ends....and that absolutely is used to those ends. The result is that the four of them, as well as those other characters, are constantly screwing things up as they try and figure out a way to better their world, to figure out who is behind the clearly evil schemes playing out, and to figure out how to deal with it all.

The result is a plot and setting that is very strong at times, with themes of nobility vs commoners, of refugees and their treatment, of blood and heirs and of duties to one's people vs duties to one's self, etc. etc. This is a world that may be dying, but that doesn't stop oppression, or people liking power games that may not matter, or for people having what are basically religious squabbles, how love and caring can turn to darker thoughts, and more. There's a lot of really good stuff here in it all. I should also mention that it's a very queer-normal world, with non-hetero relationships and queer characters being something utterly normal to see in the narrative without anyone beating an eye at them.

Unfortunately, there's basically too much stuff, and the book can't really hold it all, even as big as it is. While each of the characters' individual actions generally make sense and fits, they're occasionally incredibly abrupt in how those actions are taken, and the reactions of other characters to those actions often feel like they're missing some connecting tissue - for example, two characters are lovers from the start, and in a seemingly good relationship, until one does something incredibly dumb and the other acts like it's only the latest in a series of betrayals of his trust, even though we haven't seen any other prior such betrayals. Two of the major characters get minor characters as love interests, only those minor characters disappear for so long it's easy to forget who they are (especially one of those two, who basically reappears as a potential love interest after his introduction like a hundred + pages before with nary a mention beforehand). And then there's the ending, in which all the antagonists' plots are revealed, with a ton of competing motivations and schemes, and honestly while after a reread I have a decent idea of what actually happened in the end, I'm still a bit unsure as to why they so happened and why the antagonists acted in that fashion.

Still I had a similar reaction to another epic fantasy doorstopper last year, M.A. Carrick's The Mask of Mirrors, and I tried the second book in that series and found I loved it. And there's enough characters I like here, and enough promise, that there's a good chance this will follow that. So I'm gonna stick with this, and others may want to give this a shot too.

First of all I’d like to thank Netgalley and Orbit books for allowing me to read an ARC of The City of Dusk in exchange for an honest review.

The City of Dusk follows the four heirs to the noble houses of Vaega, a magical realm that was long ago sealed off from the remaining ones. You meet Taesia and Dante Lastrider, Angelica Mardova, Risha Vakara, and Nikolas Cyr, as they try to fix their dying kingdom and save themselves from an inevitable fate.

The multiple POVs in this book do a good job of conveying the chaotic and contradictory views and plans each of the characters have. In some cases I’ve seen multiple POVs muddle the story until it’s hard to tell one character from another, but this is not the case in The City of Dusk. Each of the characters have very distinguished and fleshed-out voices that come through clearly in their respective chapters. From desperation to stubbornness, to a slow spiraling descent, each of the characters have clear motivations and objectives. This makes it even more interesting when they clash or begrudgingly align to face the bigger enemy. I could feel the pain and betrayal when they turned their backs on each other, but I could also feel the love and dedication when they were most needed. Even the chapters that are narrated by side characters are very distinct and it helps give backgrounds to these characters, and shows the reader just how they are handling the events of the main story.

There are also a few plot twists in the book that I thought were really well done and the execution was so good I physically stopped reading and kind of just sat there re-reading the last paragraph to fully grasp it. The big pot twist that comes towards the climax of the book was one that I sort of started to guess at a chapter or two before the actual reveal but that didn’t detract from the impact that had on the story.

Another thing I really enjoyed in the story was the queer representation that was tied in so casually that it didn’t feel like a main component to any one character. It was nice to see characters that were queer without that being their entire storyline, and that part of them didn’t make them less powerful than any non queer counter parts. There is also a fair amount of cultural representation in the book as well, which again was really nice to see. It was important to include these characters and to again give them stories that didn’t directly revolve around who they were.

The magic and world building was another really interesting faucet of the book, and unlike a lot of fantasy it didn’t feel difficult to understand. It was nice to have the world building steeped in the story rather than dropped on you in the first few chapters. To me this lends to a more authentic and interesting story because you can fully immerse yourself in it without being overwhelmed. The magic system itself was a lot of fun exploring alongside the characters, and it leaves me yearning for the next book. I liked the idea of each of the heirs having access to their own sorts of magic, which made them both revered and feared. I look forward to seeing what Angelica and Nikolas can do in the coming books!

I always enjoy a good book with interesting magic elements and well placed corruption arcs, and this book delivered on both of those fronts. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can not wait for it to come out in stores because I know I will be going to pick a copy up and desperately wait for the sequel!

"The City of Dusk" is Tara Sim's first adult fantasy book, and it takes its cue from many other common adult fantasy works: multiple POVs, a thorough pantheon system, magic, and a diverse cast all initially interested me greatly as I began this work. Unfortunately, while this was a lot of fun, I'd hesitate to call it "adult" - it reads YA, from the simplicity of the sentence structure to the depth of nuance as characters grow and change throughout the book. I couldn't really pinpoint *exactly* what it was that read so YA, but I forgot it wasn't YA several times until there was a sex scene or a particularly juicy swear thrown in.

So with that in mind - this book is loooong, and the POVs change up quite a bit. While the central characters are easily identifiable, some additional POVs were just unnecessary to the action and served as padding to me. The pacing initially throws you directly into the middle of it - which was wonderful! But the pacing slowed down again until around the 30% mark.

All in all... this was fun, but too much like other things I've read for it to really stand on its own as unique. I think people seeking a New Adult fantasy might really love it! It just wasn't really for me.