Entertaining, light popcorn type fair. Not a lot of substance, but enjoyable.

Expected to despise this book, in part because I really disliked these characters from the Netflix series "Shadow and Bone" and because I am not a fan of YA, but it was actually pretty enjoyable for a while. Did get a bit tiresome near the end.

The plot is pretty predictable. The characters are rather superficial. Everyone has some tragic sob story, which gets pretty old after a while, constant flashbacks break a lot of the tension.

Kaz is a garbage character. The author tells us a hundred times what a terrible person he is, but he seems fine and his sob story was the least believable and most tiresome of them all.

All the characters should have been older, but the author had to make them fit into the YA group so they HAD to be 17 and we the readers HAD to have the beaten into our heads a thousand times.

At the end, I felt nothing for any of the characters and don't care at all to read the next book, honestly. But overall I would say the book as enjoyable. Not a lot of substance, didn't take home any deep or meaningful messages from this one. Would recommend if looking for some entertainment without depth.