Loved every bit of it (my first ann liang book)

I read it right after Circe, so it doesn’t hit. I feel like I would enjoy it even more if I read it when I was 13 or 14.

• This book has a habit of repeating itself a lot. Like in page 311, Shiori expressed her fear saying that “If Zairena had caught me using the spinning wheel for the starstroke, I’d be thrown in the dungeon.” which was all well and good. However in the same page she states again that “The last thing I needed was for Zairena to catch my spinning starstroke in her room.” I just feel that there isn’t much need to be repeating her thoughts or situation since we can already tell what is going on.

Update: I just finished the book and I would give this book a 3.5 stars. The writing made the book pretty fast paced which I didn’t mind, but the descriptions were very brief which made me forget majority of the scenes in the book. Therefore, the writing was pretty sub par. The plot however was amazing. From the plot twists to the fairy tale theme, the plot was the only thing that kept me going.

It was a bit predictable and even juvenile, but an amazing story

I wasn't able to completely get into it because I was annotating it while it was my first time reading. However I did enjoy it and I am planning to read it again.

I did read through this easily but I am embarrassed that I slightly liked the writing. If the book was somewhat original and did not directly take from Red queen, the selection, and the hunger games, I would have enjoyed it more. But sadly I cannot.

IT IS AMAZING. Madeline Miller's writing makes it exceptionally paced and I genuinely feel like I lived life with Circe. This book has beautiful writing and it is 100% a five star read from me