strega e cacciatore di streghe innamorati,
figli illegittimi e madri assassine

SCONTATO, BANALE, SUPER STEREOTIPATO
cmq di facile lettura ( )

I liked it but not as much as I wanted to.

The plot is predictable but well planned out, and the world building was good.

What I liked:

There is a map.
Witches with vengeance.
Forced marriage to the enemy.

Lou was a well thought out character. She is your typical smart street rat with brains and a wise mouth. She only wanted to live her life how she wanted and not what destiny had planned for her.

Reid is such a sweet heart. He stood strong in his beliefs but later became a bit broken, but his morals came to light.

Coco is such a fun side character. She is open and wants to kick som ass.

Ansel is so boyishly innocent, and I just wanted to pinch his cheeks.

The plot was too predictable to my taste - figuring things out be for they are revealed, but it was still good enough to continue the series. ( )

A great start to the trilogy; can't wait to see what happens to these characters in the next book. I love that Shelby Mahurin jumps right into the story and builds the world throughout the book. ( )

With a hundred pages left I wasn't feeling the pull, but the wrap up bumped it to decent instead of just ok, and maybe I will end up reading the sequel. See the full review and more at MyBookJoy.com!

Recommended: for specific people
For those really into witchy stuff, for those who want the "hate to love" romance arc, for a story focused on self-discovery

Thoughts:
So. As often with crazily hyped books... I wasn't that impressed. I probably would have waited even longer to read this, but it was a thoughtful gift for Christmas and I was intrigued. In the end this was nearly a 2 star read overall, but a key element of the end bumped it to 3 and made it more likely that I would pick up the next, though not in a hurry. The overall path of reading was like: 4,5,3,2,2,2,3 (that new-read excitement got me hard on this one but helped carry me through).

My gripes are with the romance and the magic. The romance felt abrupt, as the characters only have a few interactions before they're declaring their newfound feelings, and the interactions they had were mostly antagonistic. I can get behind the enemies-to-lovers thing, but I just wasn't wooed by their progression in this case.

When I say I had an issue with the magic, it's primarily that there wasn't enough of it. I came into this expecting a vamped up witchy playground, but instead our MC is repeatedly saying how she's terrible at using her magic and has let herself slip so much. That was pretty underwhelming, even considering the moments where she uses her powers to great success.

There were some really touching moments of self-discovery and self-reflection, and I loved the way the characters learned about themselves through learning about each other. But ultimately, it felt fairly weakly developed. Neither of the MCs were my favorite character, which I think says a lot about my thoughts on them both. The humour often didn't land for me, and the MCs over-the-top defensive uses of it grew tedious pretty quickly.

When it comes down to it, I'm not really sure what I was reading for most of the time. My recollection is that there wasn't much substance, and yet it was over 500 pages. Why??

I did quite enjoy the world and the lore and rules of magic, which is what kept me going, but I wanted more of that. Ultimately the only real reason I finished this (after putting it down for a few weeks and trying to regain interest for the climax) was a vague obligation to the person who gifted it to me. ( )

There's scene that literally brought me to tears. A couple of shockers come out that I should have seen coming but surprised nonetheless. ( )