House of Marionne- J. Elle

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Here is a summary from Goodreads:

"Rich is the blood of the chosen

17 year-old Quell has lived her entire life on the run. She and her mother have fled from city to city, in order to hide the deadly magic that flows through Quell’s veins.

Until someone discovers her dark secret.

To hide from the assassin hunting her, and keep her mother out of harm’s way, Quell reluctantly inducts into a debutante society of magical social elites called the Order that she never knew existed. If she can pass their three rites of membership, mastering their proper form of magic, she’ll be able to secretly bury her forbidden magic forever.

If caught, she will be killed.

But becoming the perfect debutante is a lot harder than Quell imagined, especially when there’s more than tutoring happening with Jordan, her brooding mentor and— assassin in training.

When Quell uncovers the deadly lengths the Order will go to defend its wealth and power, she’s forced to choose: embrace the dark magic she’s been running from her entire life or risk losing everything, and everyone, she’s grown to love."

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First thoughts!

I initially received this book from my best friend as a birthday present, and thought the cover was beautiful, and it sounded very interesting; possibly an enemies to lovers, with a lot of dystopian fantasy.

Pros!

I quite enjoyed the plot, and the main idea and storyline throughout the book. I found it very enjoyable, fairly easy to follow along, with small little twists and things I never thought of that could be in the book. Certain characters (okay, to be honest more like only Jordan) I liked the formation behind, with the detail to their character's personality, as well as his shift in personality over the course of the book.

Another thing I really liked that is quite controversial with this book, is the romance between Jordan and Quell. I loved it, and was eating it up at any corner. Enemies to lovers...?!?! SIGN ME UPPPPP. Their dynamics and constant arguments, to their ballroom dance scene had me SWOONING for them. The only thing I didn't really appreciate, was how Jordan seemed to be more attracted to Quill after she debuted with magic. That kind of grossed me out a little bit. I also loved that they didn't have a happy ending in this book, with them together, fighting the world side-by-side. I would of been very upset if that happened, but thankfully, they don't even talk/discuss each other at the end chapters.

Cons!

Now, the pros list was pretty short, meaning a lot of the book had some small cons that will (most likely) build up while I type. First off, starting a book series (which is obviously what the author was trying to do) is already a very hard task, because the first book is building up the world, whislist having some kind of storyline that is detailed and interesting enough to keep the reader enthralled. However, J. Elle's world she created felt very difficult and lost on me from the start. I felt as if I was reading the second book of a series, not the first. I had to use a lot of context clues and google searching to be able to still only partially comprehend what she was trying to communicate and describe to me.

Another thing was the development of the other characters. For example, Quell is perfect for this. Even though she was new to the whole magic stuff, she still aced a lot of her spells and tests and such abnormally easy. Which in one way, I can understand because she is a Marionne, so magic flows easier, but still. She had little to almost no struggle with her magic.

Closing thoughts!

This book was a nice read to get something into my brain, and my hands from shaking without a book to read. However, I would not highly recommend. If you wanted something mindless to read, then this is one of those books for you.

Star rating: ***.5