Started this because I’ve been watching Big Sky, which is based on this series, apparently. The show has been a really pleasant surprise. It’s way more inclusive than I expected and had some really fun twists. The show starts off at book 2 of this, so this is a prequel, I figured - only not really because two characters were in this book. I guess that means the show may remix the books into its own thing, kind of like The Magicians. I LOVE when shows do this instead of retreading everything exactly, but I’ll see when I start book 2 how much that holds.

Anyway, in terms of the book:
Met my expectations. A couple fun twists. Good narration. Serviceable prose, but still felt a bit like commercial fiction. Nothing wrong with that but I’m definitely a reader that gets a lot out of theme and prose, so it’s fairly hard for commercial fiction to hit my sweet spot. 3 stars, for me, is exactly what you’d expect out of a book, so everything worked for me, I found it a fast read and satisfying enough. It would have been more interesting if the plotting foreshadowed one particular twist better. There’s a few contrivances that feel like an effort to do so, but don’t quite land. But I plan on starting the second all the same.