Really gripping book that made me want to immediately finish it. I liked the main characters, interesting world (although a little sense of that, one culture is so perfect and everyone is constantly looking down on the other culture to the point that the one MC degrades himself constantly by referencing his country of origin. very weird.) Biggest issues for me were pacing (how does this all occur over the span of like, 2-3 weeks??? out of control) and length (ideally it would have been 100 or so pages shorter. the branding incident in particular I would have cut).  

Enjoyable enough that I will pick up the second, but at times muddled and problematic. Very weird about food and weight for honestly no reason at all, and also weirdly convoluted with the non-mystery aspects. 

Plot-wise, I think this wrapped everything in the series up in a satisfying way. But character-wise, a lot of the characters from The Final Strife felt almost unrecognizable here. They took a step backward into less three dimensional characters. I also feel like this was almost a

bury your gays moment with literally the main couple of the series?

That was disappointing.