Tbh, I mostly had a good time with this book, but there were a lot of flaws, specially in the second half, which i had to actively ignore 😄 i read somewhere, that someone said this felt like a debut novel, and I agree. I feel like the book could've used some more editing (specially in the second half), the beginning was strong, but it read like the second half was rushed and wasn't as consistent as the first.

I did enjoy the concept of the story and world that the author built, as i said, the beginning was strong, the writing was good and engaging, easy to read. I enjoyed getting to know the FMC, her backstory and her friends. However, as it progressed, I felt the character work wasn't really consistent (specially with the FMC) and this bothered me. I felt like she was described as more of a "serious" character in the beginning (which makes sense with her backstory), but was increasingly childish and well, unserious, in the later parts of the book. She kept making decisions and acting in a way that didn't fit with the character that was initially shown. For example, she is described as quiet and introspective, thinking before acting, she even says this about herself, but later in the book she is increasingly rash and makes stupid decisions, talks probably more than she should and all together acts differently to how she was established, without really having reasons to explain this change in her nature.

Another thing that bothered me was how everything in the story started getting more and more convenient, for the FMC in particular. There are a lot of examples where things just "worked out" or where something happened and you could immediately tell why and in which direction the story is supposed to go from here. This made the book so incredibly predictable and almost all the twists where so easy to read. I don't mind a predictable twist and I do enjoy some tropey books (we all know which tropes we like lol), but it was a little over the top in this book.

One final thing I really want to comment on, because it did bother me, although I could see how others wouldn't maybe mind, was the oversexualisation in this book. I appreciate when authors destigmatize certain topics and I'm all for sexual openness and communication about sex, however I think it was taken too far in this book. The constant talk about sex, even when it really didn't make sense or fit in the context of the scene really took me out of the story. For example talking about how this famous person was known for having a gigantic dick and thats why his statue was portrayed like that, like what?! Why? Or the constant talk about how everyone is having sex all the time with everyone, the pleasurehouses, the "moans" you can hear all the time in the city. I mean I get it, sex is good and not shouldn't be a taboo, but it could've been dialed back a little bit. It felt like the author wanted to make a point, but took it too far.

As i said, all in all I did enjoy the book, even if objectively it had a lot of flaws. I probably will be reading the second book, because I do want to know where the story goes and I have some hope that it might be better edited lol also it's coming out next week, so it's good timing.