This fantasy is full of the YA feels. Luskell is your typical teenager. She rolls her eyes at her parents, argues with her mom, sneaks out, and speaks her mind. She is such a rebellious teenager who is headstrong, stubborn, acts before thinking, is competitive with others, and is impatient with herself. As soon as she thinks of an idea, she acts on it. On the other hand, she is brave and loyal and doesn’t pause to consider the potential danger and harm to herself if someone she loves is in danger. She is a YA main character to the max and I really enjoyed how well she is written and how much of a filled-out personality she has. Because Luskell (and other characters) are fully sketched out, I would enjoy reading more of this series.

Though this book was a bit more difficult to get into at the beginning due to rapid character POV changes with almost every chapter, the writing style is easy to read and the world-building is slowly fleshed out. I had a hard time keeping the characters straight for a number of chapters but as the story slowly developed I became more and more engrossed and the characters and their relationships started to make more sense. Some of the characters shared names or name structures and most of them are introduced in the beginning.

Luskell is a main character who discovers her magic midway through the book and with a short training montage is able to quickly master several spells without issue. She is a main character who seems like she might be the most powerful wizard and it’s not that difficult (one afternoon of intense training) for her to learn to use her magic (to learn to use less power at one time). Since I was already invested in Luskell and the story and the dire situation, I looked past this trope but still noticed that it was happening. At this point in the book, I already loved the three teens and wanted them to succeed.

There is a hint of a romance and a potential love triangle, but this element is not given nearly as much attention as Luskell coming into her magic and her desire to use it immediately to help the ones she loves. Perhaps in further books, this romance will be more developed. Since the characters were my favorite part of the book, I would love to see where this romantic development goes.