- #1
TLDR: 3 STARS, the best words to describe this are tedious, prolonged, interminableDetails: There's nothing here that's a spoiler unless it's markedLets talk about the setup. The MC is the daughter of an upper class military family who was lost to traffickers at the age of 5 or 6 and found back 10 years later. The family adopted an 8 yr old girl to keep the mother from going crazy. The novel starts 6yrs after the reunion with the MC in college and being the apple in the eye of the family except for the mother who's partial to the adopted daughter but not in a big way, and the adopted daughter who sees the MC as her destruction and schemes accordingly. The last big piece of the setting is apparently the people who kidnapped her put her in a Mary Sue bootcamp where she was tortured into being AWESOME✨🎉🎆🎇 🌈 🌈🌈OK it's your basic Mary Sue setting, not a problem. The problem is that SIX YEAR GAP of her being home and reintegrating with her family that does not even rate a YADDA YADDA. She's nearly out the house and the story is all about day one problems.It's still workable but it just goes downhill from there. The fake sister is 24 at the start and a moderately successful concert pianist, but is acting like a 12 yr old and resorting to pointless and petty b.s. Schemes. The MC has concealed everything about her past and her awesomeness, while amassing a fortune and bankrolling her brother's startup that's now a fortune 500 company. AWWWWWWESOMEWell you can guess where the plot goes from here, once again it's not problematic if it's done well the problem is it's not done well. Everything evokes endless face palms and makes you question your sanity. It's all done so poorly and it's always because the author said so.What brings the novel even further down is the writing style. We get endless cliche sideplots, that just distract from the story and add nothing. Toss in endless POV and disposable side characters and you have a tedious slog of a novel.