Where do I begin... The protagonist's name being two random Norse words? The chapter that is Divine Rivals But Worse? And actual dialogue tag that is "demanded gently"? The love interest asking the protagonist if she's ever fucked a man or masturbated two pages after calling her a child? (She's seventeen by the way.) The way the love interest's entire personality changes chapter to chapter? (And no, the protagonist thinking "the two halves of his personality don't seem to fit" does not fix that.) Why does this love triangle have so many sides when it's crystal clear who she is going to end up with! 

I literally only finished this due to a reading challenge. The back 40% was better than the first 60%, but I cannot get over how bad it was.

The story is gripping and the writing flows pretty well, although definitely not as well as in Ms Kovas newer books. 
It's a bit rough around the edges and it took me a few chapters to really get sucked into the story, but in the end, I couldn't put the book down anymore. 

MC was a bit annoying at the start but she got less annoying quickly. I absolutely did not see the ending coming at all, otherwise a great read and I really like the world 

This book is like eating a cold slice of pizza at 3 AM after a hard night of drinking. So satisfying in the moment but in the end, you are still waking up from a wicked hangover. Also if SOMEONE could please explain what a gummy throat feels like, I would greatly appreciate it 💕

I have never seen a book squander SO MUCH potential until now! It's all there! It basically oozes off the page begging, pleading, and screaming at the sky to be used - but it's flatly ignored to give us boring inconsistent one-dimensional characters, teenage angst, and unnecessary drama llama all wrapped up in mediocre writing.

This book follows Vhalla, a shy boring nobody commoner who works in a library as an apprentice. One day, low and behold, after saving the broody and mysterious crown prince's life with magic, our boring chosen one is thrust into the world of magic she has been taught to fear.

I had a few problems with this book, so let me try work through them as best I can...

1. The book has a premise that instantly hooks you in and I wanted to love it as it fell into my niche of fantasy romance perfectly but I went in apprehensive based on the vastly juxtaposing reviews out there ranging from 2 - 5 Stars, all from people and friends who's reviews I NORMALLY trust as gospel! As said I absolutely LOVE fantasy romance; however, those that think this is a "Fantasy Romance" are deluded as this is actually a "Romance Fantasy". Let me explain... "Fantasy Romance" is a book where the fantasy is the main plot and the romance is the subplot. These are set in fantastical, magical worlds with an overarching FANTASY plot. This book, romance is the main plot with a slight sprinkling of fantasy. It is almost like the fantasy elements are just used to put our main characters into situations that would cause drama and angst for the ROMANCE. So if you do not like your fantasy books filled with MOSTLY romance, this is not for you.

2. I appreciate a good book just like fine dining and a good bottle of wine, they have class and an air of sophistication. This book is NOT that! This is basically trash TV on the CW or Netflix. The type of show you'll binge-watch for an entire weekend until your brain turns to mush and your eyeballs are rectangles; but still, you can't turn away from the screen because of the teenage angst and drama. It's not only that the book feels like a TV show, but the writing style mirrors this. Its inconsistent plot feels like jump cuts and scene changes. There are a lot of scenes that happen with no clear transision of how the character got there. It's just meant to be accepted that this happened. A LOT of the dialog is quite far-fetched and seems unnatural as it's very witty, quips, and often feels like it skips natural progression in a conversation.

3. Vhalla as a character is shit! She is difficult to describe because I've just read a whole book about her and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS... One second she is innocent as a rose and timid, and shy and scared of you "the prince" and things beyond her ken... (if you got the reference to this I LOVE YOU). She spends almost the whole book feeling sorry for herself, sulking, soapy, crying, and starving herself whilst living the most boring life on the planet...THEN the NEXT second she changes her mind 16 times a minute over the whole "should she/shouldn't she" become a sorcerer. It's frankly EXHAUSTING!!!

4. The writing in general gave me a headache. It was so choppy. It would be 5-word sentences. Every one of them just stops. It was so unnatural. There were pauses when we didn't need them. Breaks that could have been avoided. It was like Elise Kova was so badly scarred from being reprimanded for run-on sentences and comma splicing that she completely avoided making sentences longer than 2 lines and so made it very difficult to get into the writing itself.
An example of this:

“You are fine. See how quickly you are healing now? You will be better than fine soon. I will even teach you myself.” He outright smiled, as though he was bestowing some great honor upon her. But Vhalla did not smile. She took another step away and swayed as the world was suddenly unstable. She had been on her feet for too long. Prince Aldrik was there in a moment, his hands on her upper arms for support. “Stop this foolishness,” he said, his deep voice gentle. “You know you should not be standing. Let me help you back to bed.” His sudden kindness made her want to scream.

I did like the cocky bastard prince, even if he pushed her off a building. He has smirks for days, gushed sex appeal, and created a whole lot of sexual tension you could cut with a knife.

Overall if you take this book too seriously, you are going to have a bad time. It's trashy, over-the-top, extravagant, cheesy and extremely unrealistic. But I had an OK time reading it because it got reactions out of me... Some might have been eye rolls and huffs of anger, but I did appreciate the drama. If you like teenage drama and shows like Reign, Riverdale, and Charmed appeal to you, you might actually like this! 

I don't really have much to say about this book unfortunately. It was a pretty middle-of-the-pack book. Did I have enough fun reading it that it was worth finishing? Sure! Do I intend on finishing the series? Probably not, especially considering Elise Kova always says it's not necessary to read her earlier series in order to enjoy the late series in the same world.

The story is very typical  "Girl doesn't know she has magic, ends up accidentally using it and a magic-user discovers it, takes her away from her old life in order to train her, etc". One thing I did like; in the Tower of Sorcerers (I might be recalling the name wrong, anyways this is the place where Vhalla is taken to learn how to use her magic), all the different types of magic users get their own differentiating uniforms based on what element they control, similar to Shadow & Bone with the Grisha and their keftas. I just think it adds a small fun detail!

A lot of the characters felt pretty under-developed, other than the main character Vhalla, her love interest, and like one other person who I'm pretty sure is going to be an antagonist of some sort later on.

One of Vhalla's childhood friends dies, and since his only personality trait is "childhood friend" the author didn't really expand on why Vhalla is so sad about losing him or why we should be sad too.

Another thing I disliked was that the love interest is described as being "no more than 10 years older" than the MC. Vhalla is 17, turns 18 on page. So "no more than 10 years older" could mean that the love interest is 26, flirting with a minor. I know this is a fantasy book and in ye olde times people married minors all the time but it still makes me uncomfortable.