I struggled with Iron Gold for much longer than I should have. I found it hard to connect to our new characters for quite a long time and the pacing was a very slow build. I also could have done without a lot of the brutality especially of the animals eating/torturing you variety. Didn’t realize I was sensitive to that but evidently I am. Yet as always Pierce Brown scrapes it together in the final act. I think this will be more enjoyable on reread once I'm more invested in our characters. This was more like a 3.5 star for me throughout much of the book, but the ending bumped it up for me.