Though I had some doubts as to the premise, I seriously loved the worldbuilding, and the main characters turned out to be extremely likable. Any tropes are presented in interesting if not wholly imaginative ways, and I'm definitely interested to see where this one goes.

EDIT: The plot and worldbuilding still delight me (minus the infodump annotations — they’re just so long and not all of them are necessary or relevant), but the characters seem flat and the writing itself isn’t great. The heteronormative YA romance is also very strong with this one, unsatisfyingly so. Still, it’s a decent time overall, and I reread it so I can appreciate the trilogy in its entirety; unless the second book is totally underwhelming I intend to follow through.