It seems to me that if you're reading the book because people said it was popular and it had romance, and you just wanted in on the hype, those people seemed to have hated it. But the people who wanted a cozy fantasy read absolutely loved it. I think some people also thought it would be a literal encyclopedia of faries. Instead, they got journal entries.

What made me laugh is at some point she felt the frosty ice king's enchantment on her finger because of the ring, and then she "tricked' the enchantment like it's a tangible thing that could be tricked.

I just finsished this.. i gave up reading it and listened to most of it on audiobook at 2x speed to get it done! I agree with all your points! It irked me how the narrator would just add in new facts about the faeries throughout the book whenever it was convenient for the plot. It just felt half baked.

Nothing about this book worked for me. I hated the love interest and therefore the romance and the female lead was not really likable as well.

Agreed!

I just finished it. I found it a bit hard to stay focused on the read. It was ookkk at Best.

Ugh THANK YOU. The amount of scrolling I had to scroll to find someone reviewing this book who didn’t have a giant smile next to the cover was ridiculous. Emily was the worst. She is basically a sociopath with high functioning autism. At least Sherlock had charm she has none. I agree with EVERY critique you gave. Ugh, worst let down I’ve ever read. This should have been an obvious 5 star book and it’s a 2.5 at best

I adored this book and have read and re-read it mutiple times. It doesn't sound like you paid very close attention to her details. The Character developmant is strong. The dialogue entertaining and the romance dangerous and intriguing. I think you have done this work a great disservice in this review.

Thank you! I started wondering why everyone everywhere I looked praised this book - I found it so tedious! And I really wanted to like it - I love real life mythologies and folklore, but for the world where Fey are real, the book is surprisingly dull. And don't get me starter on Emily!

This book was amazing. I'm sorry it wasn't for you. That's art, right? Great book imo.

I’m just more than half way through and I will visit your YouTube channel again once I am finished. While it is magical and entertaining storytelling I wished I had known it would go at a very slow pace before I started. I feel like I could have enjoyed the journey even more so if I knew this ahead of time!

I tried to read this 3 times and I just can't. I really wanted to like the book. It was good for learning new vocabulary words though.

I am so glad I found your review. I wanted to DNF but pushed through to see if it got better. It didn't. The amount of stereotypes regarding Nordic and Scandinavian countries... Nope. Gives me the ick. Cozy fantasy and the main character chops off her own finger, and that is described in a very gory and explicit way? Nope. Just nope. The narration being diary entries just made it feel really far away. What they call "neurodivergence" just pushes a very narrow portrayal and narrative of people on the spectrum. Thank you so much for this review. You seem to be the only one saying these things online.

Sadly agree with basically anything you said. Gutted about it! I had really looked forward to reading it with my book club here in February