Call me Mike because this is Hard Rated. I've never read a book that varied so heavily in its quality, it's actually astounding how high the highs are but how low the lows are.

The worldbuilding is interesting and presented well, the setting feels alive like the characters are actually living in it and not just pasted on top of it. The pacing is absolutely abysmal and I could tell at about 80% in that there was no possible way for this story to wrap up in any reasonable manner, and I was right, if it were properly paced the ending should have been the mid point turn (they introduced important things in the finally that really should not have been introduced there).

The characters are really fun to read about, their internal conflicts are interesting, they're complicated in a good way, the banter between Kamran and Alizeh is really nice, I could feel their chemistry. Which is saying something, I'm usually very picky about romance arcs, but I was sold on this one. Pretty much every side character was incredible too, I didn't think anyone was wasted, absolutely the highlight of the book. But the book spends soooo much time going over every single thing that it drags the pacing out terribly, and also makes the characters who are meant to be smart look stupid, because they take forever to think through the realisation of something that was obvious from context. Actually, not even context. Literally the Text. Like a character will say something, and then the pov character of the moment will be like 'what did they mean by that?' and think about it for like three paragraphs before going 'it must mean the thing they just said' like YEAH WE KNOW. WE KNOW. I was fr near tearing my hair out for the last 10%

I would make a bargain with the devil to have been a developmental editor on this book. My god it has legs, there's just something weird going on with the body.

But Tahereh Mafi I will give you this you have accomplished something that no book has ever been able to do before, which is convince me to read the sequel to a book that annoyed me as much as this did. The last line was just too good I have to know what happens.