* I gave this book 3.75 stars*
I enjoyed this book. I think the pitch was correct to get me excited. I really loved the hunger games story with a magic twist. I also enoyed that we got so many differnt POV characters. I felt like it was also a super quick listening. I think because this was the first book in the series some of the major story elemets lacked tension and the characters somtimes through audio bleneded together!! But i will def read book 2 soon!! ( )

* I gave this book 3.75 stars*
I enjoyed this book. I think the pitch was correct to get me excited. I really loved the hunger games story with a magic twist. I also enoyed that we got so many differnt POV characters. I felt like it was also a super quick listening. I think because this was the first book in the series some of the major story elemets lacked tension and the characters somtimes through audio bleneded together!! But i will def read book 2 soon!! ( )

This was so interesting! I loved the ride. ( )

So a note to start: this isn't a complete story. It's more like a story that just ended halfway through a Save the Cat beat sheet. That said, I came to this because I needed a quick, entertaining read to give my brain a break from some of the crazy awesome stuff I've been reading lately. This did deliver that, in spades. Though the teenagers fighting each other to death thing has been done and overdone in the last decade, I found this take to be a super creative departure from what we're used to seeing. It's a modern day fantasy (low fantasy) so it takes place in our modern world, where everyone is able to use magic, but only 7 families can use HIGH magic, and every 20 years, one champion from each family fights to the death for the right for their family to control that high magic for the next 20 years.

I loved how campy this was. It turned a lot of the tropes in this niche on their heads and also pulled in some fairy tale references that were fun to tease out. The writing is simple, but clear. The pacing is great. All these pros outweighed the fac that there are some holes and inconsistencies in the storytelling. But I didn't pick this book up for a literary experience; I picked it up for a good time, and it delivered.

I'll be reading book two because it's the only way to finish the story, but if you're looking for something quick, easy, campy, and an old trope reinvented... this is for you! ( )

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Teen for the ARC of this book.

Oh man...at 80% through this book I was thinking it was a standalone and I was enjoying it immensely and bummed it wasn't going to be a series so I checked and found it was a series, hooray! And then I was immediately thought "oh no, I'm 80% through and there is no way everything gets wrapped up in this book....it's going to end with nothing resolved isn't it?!" Ugh....but I can't wait for the next books! There is so much character development and twists - it really kept me entertained and wanting more (which is saying something given my current life circumstances). ( )