This is much more ambitious than Priory - which both helps and hinders it. There are eight perspectives, multiple regions, and a sweeping narrative that covers a large swath of time. Because of this, character take a while to feel relatable and a lot more patience if asked of the reader in terms of payoff.

Thematically, I think it delivers very, very well. Queer characters are handled very well and it also has complex themes around motherhood - two things that sometimes don’t jibe well, in my experience. The inclusion is done really well. The author, I think, is interested in characters and readers parsing out information that make them inherently unknowable, even to themselves. They articulate imperfect information that questions what the meta knowledge of the reader is, which sometimes put me on shaky ground, but was always interested to learn more. Mostly because I had faith in the author from reading Priory years ago, and those things I was most confused about were revealed in a way that reworded it. But it does feel like the first time the author ventured into this complex and ambitious a project. Priory is a much more confident novel. Once you get to about halfway into this, the footing is found and it more resembles Priory in that regard.

There’s room at the end of this for an additional chapter before Priory as well, I think, which I’m looking forward to, should that happen. I think the author only gets better at this kind of expansive story. Even as rocky as it was, it was still far better at pacing and information design than Sandersons’ lauded works, imo.