Tone is wrong, the more you read the more you grind your teeth
I think the author is going for a Jester of the Apocalypse feel, but shanks it.
Rape, torture, alcoholism, and child abuse are all treated weighty but superficially, grist for a tragic background of a rising hero. Just one more challenge to overcome.
The writing is good and the world is interesting, but I’m not sure I’ll be reading more with the choices the author keeps making.
The darker heavier choices kinda overshadow the central bizarre icky writing choice. That the MC apparently has had a crush on the FMC since she was 3 or 4 at a daycare together. From 6 to 17 they never speak and rarely see it each other. On her bday he finally asks her out after finding out about her magical background, and through out the books keeps doing so no matter how often she says no. The FMC isn’t innocent in this and often encourages him, but it’s not a star struck romance, their every romantic interaction makes me want to call a therapist and the police. They stalk each other, they manipulate each other, the deliberately harm each other. That the author views this as high romance worries me.