Just not enjoying it and not intruigued.

The first one wasn't really my thing, and I think I don't like "will they get back together" plots where their original romance was brief and one person truly became awful in the meantime. 

Having trouble getting into it.

I like the narrator for Gul's portion. This isn't the first audiobook performance I've listened to by her and I like her style. What kills it for me is the male narrator. The performer for Cavas has a voice which sounds like he came straight from working on a Trump impression to do this audiobook. It's annoying during the main narration when he's portraying Cavas's thoughts and speech. Then, it becomes even worse when any female characters speak, as he gives them grating falsettos which are only barely differentiated. Luckily, Gul narrates much more of the book than Cavas does, and if I had access to a printed edition of the book I would have switched to that as soon as he first spoke. 

Setting aside the audio for a moment, I can't stand Gul. She was fine but a bit annoying, then midway through she shamed a girl for what she thought was a history of sex work but turned to actually have been rape and other abuses while a small child. Gul ended up apologizing and the only thing I liked about it is that the other person didn't accept the apology. Even if she'd been correct that it was sex work and consensual, that still would have been awful to try and shame her for it. In terms of the writing for the other girl, she was wielding that history of sexual abuse to try and say Gul wasn't ready or tough enough because she hadn't suffered enough as someone who'd "only" had her parents murdered in front of her. 

The oppression olympics are noxious, I have zero emotional investment in Cavas (supposedly the love interest but at over halfway through I'm not seeing that yet, he's just a boy who's there), and I don't like Gul. 

Didn’t like it, not totally sure why.

I didn't realize this was near-future or possibly contemporary, which was too close for comfort, given the topic.

Did get into it, I don't like the way it drags out.

I love so much about this book, I just couldn't handle a particular topic that's triggering for me when I was already stressed (mostly in good ways) by the story so far. The worldbuilding is very cool, paying attention to language and tiny cultural differences existing between the decks. The audiobook performance is good. I like Aster as a main character.

I really wish I could handle finishing this, but I just can't.

Having trouble tracking the dynamics of the group since they’re already a team when the book begins. Also, for the audiobook, one of the narrators has a very flat affect which conflicts with the liveliness of the other narrator’s portions.

I know this is an anti-hero story, setting her up to be the villain of the sequel, but I detested the main character and just couldn't keep going. Her relationship with Wei feels built on nothing but having been near each other. They have no chemistry and it seems like they barely even talk. I like it when characters have good reasons to try and do a bad thing, but this seemed like she's determined to make terrible decisions in order to live up to what her abuser wants, knowing that Guma was abusive. I don't like any of it and I'm stopping.