The Courting of Bristol Keats

This story marched confidently and unabashedly into absolute mess territory.

The tone of the initial chapters is done well, but this changes drastically as the book progresses as if the author just decided they could frontload all their effort and wing the rest. I have whiplash from the inconsistent and sloppy writing which featured characters fluctuating in personality between 16 and 40.

What little world-building is present is applied with no rhyme or reason, such as how the passage of time differs between the two realms, but suddenly doesn't matter so X plot point can happen. Lots of telling, not showing with various events. I don't even have the energy to get into all the forced plot points.

The love interest had the appeal of wearing 40-grit sandpaper socks and (shockingly) there was no real connection between him and the protagonist. Additionally, without giving away spoilers, the whole situation was a little ick.

Lots of side characters, but don't worry, they are all the La Croix version of one of two archetypes: annoyingly chipper/friendly or vaguely mysterious and not to be trusted.

I kept reading because I expected, at 560 pages, this would form a cohesive story but the characters are dumb, the writing gets worse and it just...ends. It's not even a cliffhanger - more like the literary equivalent of syncope.