This book was a bit hard for me to get into at first. It starts off a bit slowly, and the inclusion of a lot of words in a different language without explanation didn't help the pacing. There were also a lot of typos throughout the book, including a couple of places where the incorrect names were used in a scene. There was also a part where fae eyelids were described as being "crazy slanted" but not like Asians; it's not the worst, but just felt unnecessary. 

The story does pick up the pace, starting when Tessa is saving Lauren, and then maintains a good pace from there. There are a lot of interesting world-building elements included for both the fae world and the post-apocalyptic mortal land. I thought Kagan's relationship with Rinn (his sword) was interesting. In the fae land, when a fae gets his sword, the sword has sentience and is able to communicate with its owner through touch. Kagan is a bit overly-reliant on his relationship with Rinn, but I thought this was an interesting concept. There is a magical bird named Orgo, which seemed like an interesting character, but a convenient reveal about him is kept until the ending scenes, and I thought he could have been utilized better, as he is supposed to be a magical being with a great deal of knowledge. 

I think the book also does a good job in making the dire circumstances of the mortal world feel believable. It has all become a barren wasteland with the bad guys known as the Rovers, who are violent and are a constant threat to the settlement of survivors. The Settlement houses the non-barbaric survivors, including Tessa and Lauren. Life in the settlement, although rough, is shown as the best possible option in this new, ruined world. They have to schedule constant patrols to keep out the Rovers and have adapted to a lifestyle of scarce resources. I think all of this is delineated pretty clearly and these circumstances make sense in this kind of situation. The characterizations of the people introduced in this part of the book were done well; they all felt like distinct characters who each played different roles in their society.

The parts of the book that made the rating lower for me were the plot points that just seemed to come out of nowhere and didn't make sense. A lot of the action and conflict with Lauren, Tessa, and Kagan commences because of a nonsense betrayal by someone close to them, which causes Lauren to be kidnapped by the Rovers. When this is revealed, it makes no sense. If this person really cared about Lauren, there is no way that they would involve the Rovers, knowing how violent they are, especially towards women. I suppose that part of the reason that this person felt the need to go this route was because Lauren was still just as immature and self-centered as she was as a 15-year-old, and so this person supposedly felt there was no other way. But I don't believe that if you love someone, you'd be willing to risk people dying or getting sexually assaulted just to get back in a relationship with them.

The resolution to the story also fell flat. It basically amounted to "love conquers all," and just felt too convenient and easy after all they had been through. Before this point, there were interesting revelations about the twins and their relationship to magic and to the fae god, but then it all just kind of wraps up nicely in a quick scene that isn't fully explained, and that's it. In an epilogue scene, it also seems like the fae lords don't know what happened to Kagan, but they know about Lauren.  So why wouldn't she have just told them what happened? Although, maybe that's explored in the sequel.

Overall, there were a lot of action scenes and plot points that I thought were intriguing through the middle of the book. In particular, the part where the characters are tracking and then fighting the Rovers had good pacing and kept me interested. I was also interested in the twins' relationship to magic, which is shown to exist but not fully explained yet. I also appreciated the slow burn relationship building between Kagan and Tessa. I'm glad it wasn't just immediate and inexplicable. This book was a pretty quick read, and I liked the pacing of it after the introductory parts. Had the inciting betrayal and the conclusion been better plotted, I would have enjoyed the book more overall.