This is objectively a good book, but it is very much an English class book. The first 80% is quite dense and literary, but you find yourself very invested in the characters despite the slow pace and various tough subject matters. Then suddenly, it turns into a YA fantasy novel- everything that happened in the final 20% was unrealistic and way too convenient. The exposition, even thought it was fantasy, really did feel realistic- but all of the sudden I felt like I was reading a completely different book! I had no interest in either side succeeding and I think they both didn’t do a great job of justifying their mission. Again, objectively a good book, commentary on colonialism was fascinating, and I find linguistics to be very interesting- but this didn’t feel like a groundbreaking thesis on language to me, more of a fantasy novel where sometimes I learned about how to translate certain words.