in short: intriguing plot that was completely butchered by awful writing

the plot? i love the idea of this book. i love unhinged stuff. the writing? an absolute disaster. metaphors that make zero sense ('voice loud like sunshine,' 'eyes that looked too soft for accounting,' 'smelling of worry'), constant repetitive phrasing (everything 'folds into itself,' her thumb 'hovers' before every single text, similes starting with 'like' every other sentence), and descriptions so bloated that half a page gets dedicated to Gia reacting to a knock on the door when 'it was jarring' would have sufficed. the author describes the same thing five different ways in a row as if we didn't understand it the first time.

the characters are painfully on-the-nose. Gia is a Type A personality written so literally it feels like the author googled 'Type A traits' and copy-pasted it (she chews food a specific number of times! microwaves things for exact times! she aligns her glass with the edge of the table!). the blurb says she has OCD, but the book does not make that clear at all. there are no signs of OCD or the stress that comes with it. no obsessive thoughts, no compulsions, just routines that bring her peace, which is... not OCD.

Gia is established as a POC early on, which adds layers of complexion to a story about a woman being literally owned, shackled, and caged, but it's never addressed or explored at all.

throw in formatting issues, typos, inexplicable word choices ('lady boner' twice on one page, the literal meredith grey quote???), and writing that screams AI-generated badly enough that I completely understand the allegations (though humans are perfectly capable of bad writing too), and you get a book that had potential, but needed about ten more editing passes.

cute, clever magic system and enjoyable story that had me jealous of a 14-year-old with a bread army

(pacing drags a bit for my adult self, but teenage me would’ve devoured this faster than Bob devouring… well, everything, and it’s rated based on that)