2023
WISE Score
Amazon
Think The Hunger Games meets Red Queen with enough 'enemies-to-lovers' tension to keep any teen glued to the pages.
4.4
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Lauren Roberts basically took every trope teens love—forbidden romance, deadly trials, and a snarky prince—and put them in a blender.
It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s a high-engagement page-turner that hits the spot for the 'ACOTAR-lite' crowd. It’s safe for the teen shelf, though you should expect some 'sizzling' moments that might make a younger middle-schooler blush. If you want them off TikTok and into a book, this is a very solid bet.
Best for 13 and up. It’s squarely in the Young Adult lane; younger readers might find the violence a bit heavy and the romantic angst a bit much.
It's a classic YA journey of survival and loyalty, though the heavy focus on 'enemies-to-lovers' tension and brutal trials keeps it from being purely wholesome.
While it leans on familiar tropes like The Hunger Games, the world-building around the 'Purging Trials' and the hierarchy of powers is vivid and engaging for fantasy fans.
Safe for its intended teen audience, but parents should know it contains 'sizzling' romantic tension and some fairly graphic descriptions of violence during the trials.
Offers decent commentary on classism and the ethics of a 'survival of the fittest' society, packaged in a way that actually gets teens to put down their phones and read.
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