Author:  madiesueb
Genre: fantasy

What I liked:

The first half(?) of the prologue was really well written, I felt the tension and anxiety from both parties. Their environment was also very fitting and we get introduced to some rather interesting characters.

That comparison to the trees roots and the family right at the start! It highlights the Zodiac's differences to other families, and already, we see that something isn't quite right within their family.

You use the eyes to convey a lot of strong emotions, as would happen in real life. Adds to tension in the situation between the four siblings in the beginning.

I found it strange (in a good way) that one sibling was King, was the best neurosurgeon, one was a lawyer. It made me wonder what kind of fantasy world this was that you've created.

However, the family dynamics are confusing, I feel like you didn't go to depth where it was necessary. I wanted to know more about certain characters more than others (like Ames and Seven) but instead, you switched POV. That aside, the characters all seem somewhat likeable in their own little ways which is good.

What I didn't like:

There are some really hefty descriptions which make trying to take everything in quite hard. Especially in the first chapter (prologue). The first enjoy chapter was a HUGE info dump and too much info at that :/

I felt like everything up to Enzo's chapter should just be called the prologue, because that's what it was.

There was a lot of grammatical errors in every chapter which was also off-putting.

Powers are suddenly thrown in, and not mentioned again for a while. Another issue I had was that there are so many characters it's hard to know who is doing what! By the second chapter, I'd say you'd mentioned at least 10 characters and I'd just about grasped who the four siblings were in the first chapter. POVs are very confusing- they have very similar voices.

I was also confused by the fact that a civil war would break out if they didn't shoot one another? Why? How does that work? You didn't really go into depth, just threw that in there.

The time jump threw me off, and the family dynamics have changed AGAIN- with more characters involved- the next generation.

I was also a little underwhelmed because nothing significant happened except for what happened in the first few chapters and I found that a little... anticlimactic. Just the kids complaining about their parents. I wanted to know more about Enzo's powers.

Overall:

At the beginning, I was super excited to read this but the further I got in the more disappointed I got. Just a lot of information and very little story. I didn't get to actually learn a lot about the characters and the time jumps and POV jumps weren't much help if I'm honest.

A confusing story with what should be a good plot. I'll give it a 5/10.