Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I know this book had a lot of 4 and 4 star reviews, so I guess I am an outlier in thinking it merited two. Like another reviewer noted, the carousel storyline is almost non existent. As I am not a huge fan of fairytale retellings, that wasn't a huge loss. Still, I dislike when a book doesn't live up to what it is supposed to be. Overall, the story is pretty shallow. Etta and Alex are super childish for their ages and life experience. Alex bullies people ( bad people, mostly, but still) and Etta is supposed to be his protector but she spends most of her time away from him or not doing protector things. The adults in this series don't take either Etta or Alex's roles seriously, which means Alex is constantly being told what to do as long and Etta is uselessly staring at her feet. I guess there is consistency here, since neither are particularly capable. Still, it makes for a bad story. FYI the romance is paltry and goes from 0 to 100 in about 5 seconds. There's almost no build up, and it just gets dropped in because hey, why not. I didn't mind the sex (it's not even described) but it was like why is this even happening? Super awkward to the storyline considering how little plot or character development happened. This book just didn't wow me. It was too young in ways that weakened the storyline, nothing much gets accomplished, and nothing surprising happens. Descriptions are minimal because we spend almost no time in each scene. Even the initial tournament is over in a flash; that should have been something that lasted much longer and felt harder. Instead it's like Etta waltzed in and didn't have to try. Boom, she's the protector. Boom she becomes friends with the Prince and sleeps with him. Boom he finds out who she is and has her captured. Everything is just so...shallow. If you are a reader wanting a more in depth experience, I suggest you skip.