much better in the second half

honestly I found the first half to be pretty generic unadventurous litrpg fare. nothing there to make the story stand out. the writing and editing are fairly technically solid, but the story had nothing to keep your attention.

The addition of Ostra saved the book imo. that’s the conflict that the drow/dwarves should have been. discrimination against monsters isn’t a new idea, but the way that the monsters are reacting to that discrimination is interesting. I want to learn more about that. it is such fertile ground for actually complex and interesting characters. I hope they don’t all have the wasted potential as *spoiler*.

I’ll probably read the second book purely to see how that develops.

side note: I feel like they gave Elise two different tragic back stories. she had an evil stepmother, and also she was an orphan raised by an uncaring aunt and uncle? did I read that right? that should have been caught in editing.