Sibylline

Overall Rating: 3/5

What started as such a promising dark academia novel, combined with a romantasy... quickly was derailed the more I read it... and I grew more and more disappointed with this as it went on.... there is mystery, there is intrigue, and there is something darker that lingers, wanting to take it all away.... wanting to corrupt and to steal. The cover and the sprayed edges are gorgeous....as is the overall feel of Sibylline and the promise of a magical campus ...

But what majorly turned me off was the fact that somehow, the whole promise of dark academia, of magic, of intrigue, and of figuring out what has somehow awakened got thrown out the window by the romance. Don't get me wrong, the overall idea and the first half of the novel I was blown away by, and I desperately wanted to know more about the university, more of its customs, its history, and its mystical knowledge... but I felt like after the first half, the romance kind of was all: "ok now its my turn" and it was more of a detriment to the plot, then actually weaving together seamlessly as it should've. There is also a little bit of odd timing, and there are plot points where sometimes it didn't 100% make sense for what was going on at the time. If there was maybe another edit, with the romance being turned down, and edits to fix the timing of certain things, I am sure that I would've loved Sibylline more than I did. Also, considering this is young adult, the details of a certain intimate nature are uh... definitely pushing a boundary.