This book was so much fun. I loved Amina and the supporting cast. I loved the themes of motherhood and faith and finding direction in life. The narrative voice was fun and engaging. I was delighted by the surprise trans character. I felt fully immersed in the world.

The pacing was very silly. The main plot/the thing that’s going to be the driving force of the planned series did not come into play until over halfway through.

There were also definitely some times when I was unsure how the characters had gotten from one scene to another. This is a problem I often have, so it may just be connected to my brain’s way of processing things, or it may be to do with the audiobook narration (which was very engaging and creative and which I recommend for sure). Regardless, I found aspects of the book slightly hard to follow at times, but never for very long.

There is some extremely intense content in this book, but the tone is much lighter than other fantasy books with similar content (The Poppy War comes to mind).