What a perplexing read. This really did not work for me, but, I do think this will maybe be a success with mainstream audiences. I think people who liked “Automatic Noodle” or “Harrow” will like this one. This is a very overwritten book, with descriptions galore. So many little things are described in detail, the color of a fridge or the type of wood for a floor. Characters are described in over the top cartoonish ways, making them more caricature than character. This is really prevalent with the main male character who is not a love interest since he is the cousin of our main female character, but for some reason he is described like captain America and constantly praised for being so bigly big and dangerous looking and hot. It’s like how fanfics turned published romance novels talk about their kylo ren characters. Weird considering the family relationship the characters have! Having descriptions like this on occasion would add a nice bit of visuals to this book, but unfortunately it feels like it was overdone because the “science” is purposefully vague and confusing. I like the idea of the universe needing to be maintained, but so much involved in this process is just hand waved away as explanation. Characters can make things appear out of thin air, characters build “pipes”, characters are “hunted”. How? They went to school, I guess. There’s so much nonsense that it is incredibly confusing.

I really wanted to like this. And there are parts I enjoyed, but unfortunately the writing was just hard to get through. This book is trying to paint itself as a cool cyber punk world where people can do tech magic all the time, but the characters are also quippy and mention real life things sometimes which feels anachronistic. It just kept getting more and more annoying, and the final climax cemented this as a 1 star for me. This feels like it would work better as a tv show or movie, but in the written form it was incomprehensible at times. I listened to this on audio and the narrator does do a great job. I’m not sure if reading it physically would have improved this book any for me though. Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, what a refreshing take on fantasy time travel. I was really impressed by this book. It was able to really nail down a tone and a stylization, very similar to Nimona but unique in its own way. The villain was believably powerful, and the magic made sense. I thought the time travel left me with some logistical questions but the narrative was able to cover for these. My only real gripe is that occasionally it was hard to tell when there was a point of view shift, which led to sometimes being confused on whose point of view I was in. But the main couple was so complimentary of each other that it really worked out fine and I found myself not caring. I was enchanted by this, would totally recommend to anyone looking for a fresh take on medieval fantasy. This book constantly surprised me and the whole time I was thinking how amazing it would be as a movie, which is a sign of a great book in my opinion. So glad I picked this one up!