But why am I even comparing them? I've known Laia a few weeks and Helene all my life. Helene's no passing attraction. She's family. More than that. She's part of me. 
 Yes, please enlighten me with the answer to that question. Because that is the ultimate emotional struggle of this book. Clearly the emotional struggle of a lifetime. One perfect option full of love that you've known since you were six and the other somebody you've known for a few weeks. All shrouded in a backdrop of political strife and turmoil. War. blah. factions. blah. a bunch of Randomly Capitalized terms. a trial to the death. a boring main female mc. Other YA dystopian cliches. It has all of them. 
 I seriously can't with all this... 
 My main sore spot about this huge jumbly mess of a book is the characters. Let me give you a breakdown here. 
 Our main characters: 
 Laia- the main female protagonist. What a fucking blob. Honestly, could this waste of a character be even more devoid of personality? She's a member of one of the enslaved groups of this vaguely outlined society. She is the long-lost youngest daughter of the Resistance's previous leaders, who were killed. She offers to work at the castle/school/commander's residence, which is a training facility for the leading factions' army. It begins training kids when they are around five until they are terrorized into submission. She makes a deal with the current Resistance members to go there and be a spy, in trade for their help saving her captured brother from jail. Laia herself is weak and fearful and disposed to moping around feeling bad for herself. She, of course, is VERY pretty and has an amazing body with delicious curves (despite her meager rations and slave status in society) that nobody can resist and she has a long line of suitors who want to protect her with their tall, male bodies and carry her to safety. She is the ultimate Mary Sue, to say the least. I was very, very disappointed by her characterization. 
 Elias- the male mc who is ridiculously good looking and towering in height with a chiseled bod. He is one of the lead soldiers in the leader's army and also the son of the Commander herself. His mom hates him and he is constantly trying to escape his fate of joining the army (despite the fact that he's trained for about 15 years for this and at the beginning of the story he only has ONE MORE DAY until he graduates). For someone who has been around discipline his entire life, he's an absolute fucking moron. He is by far the WORST schemer I have ever had the displeasure of reading about in my life. He makes his intention to desert glaringly obvious to anyone with any semblance of a brain. He was also the character that made that great quote I stated in the beginning. He has this best friend named Helene who he has known since childhood and has a strong love for, and also has a stupid boner for Laia, because who doesn't she's so hot and charismatic right? He also has been chosen as one of the four contenders to become the new emperor. Even speaking about these characters is draining. 
 Helene- THE ONLY REDEEMING CHARACTER IN THIS SHITSHOW. In fact, I loved her. She is best friends with Elias and has been since they were like five. She is the only female soldier in her entire class and is also selected as one of the four overall best candidates for the role of emperor. She is skilled and smart and UNLIKE ELIAS, knows how to not be so fucking obvious about wayward thoughts. She has staunch loyalty to those she loves. And for some ridiculous reason she is in love with Elias. Even though she could do SOOOOOO much better. She is a warrior and brave and wants to make a change by succeeding in all the leadership's challenges and overthrowing the current powers. She's really so awesome. Only redeeming quality about the book. She's what gave this an extra star. I wish I could transfer myself into this book and kill all the other characters and let Helene dominate the empire. Helene, you keep DOING YOU. 
 Keenan- One of Laia's many suitors. He seems like a really decent guy. He's a member of the resistance. Apparently Laia feels like she's falling in love with him but "her body" wants Elias. God. this is so fucking stupid. 
 Basically the whole book's emotional issues revolve around this "love square" and the two mc's attempts to overthrow the government. Their relationship felt forced and obnoxious, which both characters actually ACKNOWLEDGE. and both have someone else that is better suited to them and really cares for them. 
 This is probably one of the first books where I genuinely did not want to main characters to get together. If they had their own separate love interests and came together as allies to overthrow the government, THAT would have been a much better story. It could have squashed the need to put two mc's together who are not suited to one another and instead see that men and women can be friends and can support each other outside of romantic intentions. Sidenote: Who does the author actually want the romance to be between though? There were so many mixed signals and I still am not sure about who I'm supposed to be rooting for here... 
 The plot itself was very messy and unoriginal. Everything felt like a cliche. I'm honestly relatively pissed off at this book for disappointing me as I write this review. 
 To put it simply, I did not like this book. This was a poor excuse for a dystopian novel.