this book had a lot of promise, but the author did not deliver. it's their first adult novel and you can tell. the writing was SO repetitive. i think 100 pages could have been cut just from repetition alone.
the plot twist reveal was not bad. i also usually dont like 1st person pov, but i think it works here due to sigourney's ability to "sink in" to a person's mind. bc of this, we get some parts that read like 3rd person, which is really interesting. however, this doesn't make up for the writing style itself.
parts of the plot are still not explained by the end or dont make sense no matter what. for example,

sigourney suspected niklasson of being the one tricking them, despite reading his thoughts and knowing that he loved the king and was deeply hurt and confused by the king's change in behavior

and that's just ONE plot point. there are many more.
maybe the editor was the friends we made along the way!

This is a hard book. The characters are hard through necessity, the protagonist Sigourney is honestly downright unlikable, and her participation in a system of slavery poisons her belief in the righteousness of her cause, and there's very little opportunity for love to bloom. It's a tough read, especially since Callender doesn't shy away from (nor do they revel in, which was a nice change from books by white authors that use slavery) the worst parts of slavery and they are very clear that Sigourney is not a good person. But I also feel like all of this leads it to being such a good book. I'd recommend getting a version of the book with the "extras" in the back to read Callender's Q&A about their story. I thought their discussion that they wanted to create a work about complicity with such a damaging system and that they wanted to have a book that dealt with privilege and complicity and reflecting on their own privilege and complicity in oppressive systems.