Someone please save me from the nightmare that is this moment. I am so disappointed. 
 I have been waiting for this book for months now. Even preordered it. And the cover, how beautiful. THE COVER TRICKED ME. 
 I so hardcore wanted this to be amazing. But it wasn't. 
 Okay first of all- the plot. It's a story about a girl who dresses like a boy to achieve her goals while slinging a gun like a champ. This is a fine idea, and I personally like it, but I've seen so many like it lately. And this particular version did nothing to wow me or bring anything new to the table. 
 For a large portion of the story the two main, hot, young hetero characters are venturing across the desert. Sidenote: How do so many situations find a hot guy and girl adventuring together? Like why are seventeen-year-olds so special? And why are they always paired this way? Anyways, I honestly found myself skimming this pointless traveling majority of the book. Nothing happens that is even remotely important and it is so darn boring. This boringness includes the semblance of a romance intertwined in the plot, because that whole thing was just a huge fail. I didn't even care about the two main hot people kissing or anything. I would have preferred to just skip that altogether, which is really weird for me because I love romance in stories. There was literally no chemistry between them and barely any buildup to what I guess was intended to be the glue to the whole story. The main girl character Amani has been wanting to escape her desert homeland for basically her entire life and go to this mystical city she's heard about. But then she meets this handsome dude and she suddenly would follow him anywhere? 
 The only part of this story that I liked was when we got to the magic part (THAT THE BLURB PROMISED) that was allllll the way at the end! GAHHHHH.. 
 But! All of these annoying qualities would have ultimately been okay if not for the writing. That's where it died. Because the balance here between action and internal monologuing was too vast. And within that internal monologuing there was entirely too much pointless detail. To conjure up an example of my own so I don't have to type out what the book says because I'm feeling lazy: 
 As I walked down the dark dreary alley, that once I danced through on the night of the Dance. I thought about how my mother would never reach the world of her own thoughts. How love would never grace the lowly precedence set my her forefathers. Suddenly I heard a click at my temple. There was a .05 rifle slighshooter rifle notched easily against my cranium. 
 "Time to die," said my assailant. 
 I took in the situation and thought about what my great-great-grandfather would do. Oh how he loves dolphins. Where do you think dolphins even come from? Like we're in the desert here. Haha, I'm so funny. Sigh, I wonder what my best friend is doing right now. I have to give him back his lamp that I borrowed. Not sure why I had to borrow that but yeah. It's a yellow lamp that helps guide the way through the darkness. In my land, after the sun goes away, things become dark. We have begun to call that "Night." Suddenly my thoughts flashed back to the gun at my head. 
 "Not today bitch," I screamed and grew a gun out of my own arm to shoot him. Logic doesn't matter here. Neither does time. 
 Okay so there's an example. Like something would happen and then there would be this endless time in between the action and the reaction for thoughts and even sometimes conversations. It made no sense. One time they were getting attacked in the desert by magic creatures and suddenly they find out Amani is a girl and they have this whole argument about whether to trust her now ????????? Like what????? Are the ghouls coming after you????????????? 
 I am lost. 
 Basically the writing was too uneven and soiled what action the book did have. Plus with all the descriptions and random names, I got lost in the middle of action sequences. It was actually pretty impressive how confused I got. 
 Anyways, if you want, you should try this book out. I didn't particularly like it though.