At first I thought this would be an easy 8 but here we are. I didn't dislike this book. I just didn't necessarily like it either. I did like Kiva and Jaren as main characters. Both were pretty basic but I enjoyed Kiva's compassion for literally everyone and Jaren's humour. I usually find the addition of child characters boring because they are rarely written well but I did like Tipp. Naari was by far my favourite. I enjoyed the build up of her friendship with Kiva and honestly just love reading about strong women. I do think pacing was a problem. In the start of the book I was excited for the plot to unfold and warming up to the characters but from page 100 to the final trial I had to actively push myself to keep reading. Perhaps it's due to the fact that it's very repetitive. The whole search of the possible cause of the disease could have been cut down. I predicted all plot twists apart from the very last one which did manage to have me shook. It does explain Kiva's decisions and why she was so dead set on healing Tilda. Apart from the strong start and this last plot twist though the 2/3s of the book were pretty boring. The writing was alright. One thing I did dislike was that the author tried to add as many traumatic experiences to the mcs as possible for no reason. Self harm, abuse, drug addiction etc. Trauma won't make your character more interesting by itself. That's your job as a writer. Perhaps I am being too harsh but that's how I feel. I will read the rest of the trilogy simply out of curiosity but definitely not right away