My favourite read of Jan 2024, this was such a good book! Personally I liked it a fair amount more than the first book in the series, I liked the focus on less characters. At first I wasn't sure about the dual timelines because I'm not a huge fan of that in general but once I saw it was juxtaposing both characters discovering the world and what it means to be a person for the first time, I thought it was brilliant. I absolutely love the world this author has created and seeing it expand and learning more about all the different people and cultures is truly amazing. I can't wait to read the next one!