I'd like to give this 2.5 stars, honestly, between 'it was okay' and 'I liked it'.
I first encountered this story on a story reading app (the name of which escapes me) many years ago. I was later found out it was also available on wattpad, which was like 'oh, cool, now I can just read it without having to go through the app (which put a lot of paywalls up you had to either throw money at it, or watch a *ton* of ads to get by)'. I couldn't get through it on wattpad. The writing was not cleaned up (understandable) and the character's inner monologues were... insufferable. So I put it aside, disappointed - because the concept and the initial presentation were very good.
Years later, I found out it was now available to buy a physical copy. Which I did, hoping that book version would be better. And it was. The book did have a very annoyingly wide set of margins, but eh.
I kind of regret it, and wish I'd gone for the ebook instead, despite my general preference for physical media.
The issue is, while it is kinda good, and the concept is good, and the *ideas* are mostly good, the writing and execution, for me, were... not.
Ultimately, there were a lot of hard to believe contrivances, a lot of weird random stuff inserted just to stretch the story out. The back half strained my credulity to the point it snapped, with just one random thing after another. The plot twists with Cybele's aunt were... absolute unneeded, the resolution was far, faaar too rushed, the characters did a lot of really stupid things that didn't feel like a 'well, it makes sense they'd make this poor choice' and -
I really wanted to love it, but it was honestly hard to. Made worse by often very strange and even juvenile word choices (at one point a character refers to sticking a gun up a character's 'farty hole', because apparently 'ass' is verboten), which really pulled me out of the story. It was a pretty slow slog to get through as a result. And I only finished it because I'd bought a physical copy.
I honestly can't recommend this story. Which sucks, because I'd really love to be able to.