4.25 ⭐️

TLDR; not sure what happened, but it fucking rocked.

This book isn't for everyone, but it sure as fuck was for me. The plot was complex, unraveling until the very end and leaving you with many questions. The world building was excellent and evolved throughout the book. I would compare it to Steven Erikson's Malazan series in this respect. You are always left with the bare minimum so you have wonder and awe for what the rest of this world holds, but you know enough to have the foggiest idea of what's going on.
This book does immersion very well, in the sense that you'd have to be a citizen to know exactly what's going on from page 1. It got frustrating to say the least and the back end of the book had references (and some call backs) that were not landing as they probably should have. If you often get frustrated in sci-fi and fantasy books where they make references to the world's history and context, you'll definitely want to skip this one. However, I found it tolerable because everything else about it was so engaging.
Having completed the first book, I'm dying to read the second and re-read the first. I think I'll get a lot out of a second reading.