This writing style is really starting to get on my nerves. Normally when a book is upsetting me I try to be rational about it and carefully wording my thoughts but I'm past that with this one. I need to seethe a little bit I can't contain it anymore. If you love this book you may wanna look away for a sec because I'm about to massacre it with no mercy 😭 Allowing myself just this one time to be unapologetically a hater. I've been chipping away at this book for days cause it's part of a quest/readalong so I really don't want all the time i've spent on it to be wasted from DNFing especially cause, you know, for maybe 20% of the book I was enjoying it. And that's maybe the worst part, is being able to see some unique shape of ideas starting to bloom only for it to once again go limp and lifeless. But this book just keeps going and going and going but like, where the hell even are we? I've been reading this book for 9 hours already and all that happened is people were hungry, creatures showed up, people are enchanted now, Phosyne begins to realize she has magic powers that aren't as random as we first thought. Like hello?? Why did it take us so long to get here. Honest to god every scene reads out either like 'ooh i'm so hungry', 'I can't be weak cause then what have you been fighting for', 'this might seem crazy but what if I did magic, the thing that I have specifically been tasked with doing this entire time'. And bees and honey and buzzing and dripping and sweetness and blah blah blah WE. GET. IT. And you know, maybe it's just me, but the passage that was my tipping point that made me start writing this post was the one where Phosyne has a thought and she essentially goes "wait, this thought has an accent and tastes different. See, the taste is important, because this taste is spiced instead of sweet. Interesting 🧐" Author. Author. How old is your audience? Why must you do this to us. I can't quite place exactly why this particular part got me so heated but I immediately checked my estimated time to finish and my kindle says I still have another 4 hours to go. Almost screamed into my pillow. Much like these emaciated characters: I NEED SUBSTANCE. STOP SPOONFEEDING ME THIS DRIVEL. Oh just get it over with!!!! All these people in this castle can get boiled and eaten alive at this point idc!!!! Bon appétit! I need a reason to want these characters to make it but they are just so freaking hollow literally one character trait each and then having to run with it for the entirety of the novel. And the book feels so empty to boot. An entire castle's worth stuffed to the brim with people and yet it feels like there's maybe 10 people here max. The most populated this book has ever felt was the scene where Treila was sitting at a table and ripping off pieces of meat to give to the people sitting next to her. How does a book that is made up of the author's imagination for free feel like the production got budget cuts where they couldn't afford to put any extras on the scene. Get real.