This feels weirdly like the book that Waggoner wanted to write and just needed Unnatural Magic out of the way to set the stage for this one.
That might also be debut versus sophomore book so idk.
Anyway, this was a lot of fun and the tight focus on Delly and her sense of her own worth and class and self made for a really interesting story.
Waggoner is like...ALMOST (in both her books) interrogating the system itself rather than just how it can be manipulated by bad actors, but not quite. Not that it needs to, it's just interesting to see what she is and is not willing to ask about when it comes to class.