For every interesting thing about it I encountered a cliché. It’s predictable and feels like it takes a view of heavy plotting and making the characters fit the larger movements desired by the author, and My taste doesn’t range that way. A pet peeve is when a queer relationship is plot related as well. So, this notched up a bunch of subjective things I just plain don’t like in my fiction.

I got it on audio and the narration was alright, but it became a bit difficult to tell the characters apart, adding to the reading of it being far too plotty for my taste. Might have got on with it better in physical format, but I can tell I won’t remember much of this. The only impression it left, until I bailed at 40%, was all negative, as you can tell. No reason, then, to try in a physical format when there are so many books out there to try. I did give it two stars instead of 1, which I usually do for DNFs because it did feel like I wasn’t able to accept the novel on its own terms, and I don’t think it’s “bad”, just not right for a reader like me.