GODDAMN......FUCK, MAN.

oh my god the thing is i was SPOILED for some of this! i KNEW that ending was coming! and it still fucking Destroyed Meeeee! this is a book that will stick with you in simultaneously good and terrible ways and i loveddd it.

in many ways this wouldn't normally be my thing. i really don't like political fantasy. i hate remembering names and following along with complex schemes and all of that. but i was willing to give it a shot here and well i still struggled at times but the important thing was i was never bored! a book confusing me is infinitely better than a book boring me any day of the week. also maybe in the future i should just take notes on names and places i have a feeling that would help me a lot actually. had that realization 75% of the way into this book. between the tense pacing and the deeply intricate worldbuilding i was genuinely invested even when i only half understood what was going on.

this is, obviously, a heavy novel. ESPECIALLY AT THE END. it does not shy away from the horrors of colonialism, and how much of yourself it forces you to give up. it was painful, obviously, but i appreciate when a book doesn't handle you with kid gloves. it's authentic. it's important. for all that i love the soft fluffy stuff, these books matter just as much.

and okay, yeah, the worldbuilding was obviously incredibly thought out and detailed, but good worldbuilding falls apart when not bolstered by good characters. i cannot count the number of times a book has had a good premise and the author proceeded to completely fail at making me care about these characters half as much as the author themself did. happy to report this wasn't the case here.

BARU!!!!!!!!!!!!! my most dearly beloved favorite kind of character archetype strikes again!! look i already said my whole bit down there but like. an incredibly intelligent and calculating woman who cultivates an image of herself as cold and unfeeling for her own safety, but feels so deeply that it motivates her every action. and she's a LESBIAN! and she's a BUTCH LESBIAN! this is the sound of me clapping and cheering and cartwheeling with joy! god. i love her. straight up never thought i would love an accountant this much. admittedly i didn't get quite as attached to the whole side cast because well there were a lot of them. but tain hu and muire lo did get me right in the heart. guh. not to be one of those annoying people who looks at a story that was always going to be a tragedy and goes "but what if they were happy..." but what if. they were happy...

parting thoughts. that bit about how they'll let prisoners escape from jail and then recapture them so they learn that there's no escape? and then when. yeah. that'll stick with me i think.

currently reading review: haven't finished it yet so i can't write a full review but i just need to say: so many reviews are saying what a bold choice it was to create an unlikeable protagonist and how baru is a character you love to hate and stuff like that. and i need to say i CANNOT RELATE!!! i LOOOOOOVVVEEEE baru in all of her fucked up messy mean cold calculating glory!!! this is my favorite kind of character ever! as you probably know! she was tailor fucking made for me! also like. i was half expecting her to be this emotionless husk of a person from the way some people talk about her but she's literally having Inconvenient Feelings all the damn time. come on folks you know if she was a guy you couldn't go two feet without tripping over a thirstpost. anyway i love baru i think she's amazing rip to everyone else i guess but you're wrong.