Before I begin, I’d like to say that this review is in no way meant to pile hate to the author, it is just a review expressing genuine concerns about the harmful messages that this book spreads. The way it deals with themes of sexual harassment and bullying is much more problematic than it seems under the surface.

The biggest problem I had was the misogynistic theme underlying all of the events in the book. It seemed like the twins were treated as objects throughout the whole plot, passed around from one creepy fantasy to the next. And I especially had a problem with the fact that it just become a “thing that can’t be helped” rather than an actual problem to solve. I ESPECIALLY hated that the twins ended up FALLING for the heirs that constantly abused and harassed them. The club scene disgusted me because it made these girls out to be so out of control of their hormones, which spreads the extremely harmful idea that when a girl rejects you she can still like you, which is not true in most cases. I hated that these girls kept being put in these situations, and every time they said they were going to get stronger and fight against their abusers… which never actually ended up happening. We got NO development of their strength or powers in this story, and they key being used as a plaything for the heirs or the teachers. I can’t imagine being a younger girl and reading this (because YA is marketed to teenagers so books like these should not be marked as YA!!!) and being made to believe that when a man chooses to keep sexually harassing and being violent towards me I should just suck it up and “get it over with” instead of actually getting her about it. Even worse that these young girls should be made to feel that they should have feelings for their abusers.

Aside from the problematic parts, I also felt like this book had a weird mesh of magic systems that made everything super confusing. When I read “Zodiac Academy” I got excited because I thought this would be the kind of thing where each zodiac had their own power or strength. (like in Stan Lee’s “Zodiac Legacy” series) I got really confused when it turned out they were “fae”, and then there were werewolves and vampires, and sirens, and dragons, and nymphs, and whatever other things there were, and they had elemental powers that really didn’t correlate to their zodiacs at all since the twins had all four of them? It felt like I was reading the plot line of every fantasy book I’ve ever read ever, and I really wish this book had leaned more into the zodiac aspect instead of all the different species of fae or whatever.

The one positive thing I will say is that the pacing of the plot itself wasn’t horrendous, I did find myself caught on the cliffhanger at the end, but it wasn’t good enough for me to read book #2