maxwell is so incredible at building engaging worlds and wonderful characters. it's so easy to lose yourself in a book like this because every person within it feels so real and raw. i love how maxwell takes popular tropes and makes them entirely her own. for example, the miscommunication in this book doesn't feel convoluted or unreasonable; rather, it feels natural and completely understandable within the context of the story.

i've also been obsessed with maxwell's ability to write characters who are different flavors of Walking Disaster and then throw them into angsty scenarios since Winter's Orbit, so Surit and Tennal's story was such a fun read. it makes for so many simultaneously humorous and heartbreaking moments, like this:

"You understand that your presence is a danger to Captain Halkana?"
"No," Tennal said.
"Yes," Surit said at the same time.

or this moment, which was quietly devastating and made me want to scream:

We have to go, he said calmly. And then he wrote Tennal.
Tennal's shock came off him like a wave. And, after that split second of immobility, Tennal fought him. [...] Surit was an architect with access to Tennal's thoughts, and whatever Tennal did, Surit could reach in and shape him like putty.

also, the romance! it may not be the sort of sweeping love story that i'm typically drawn to, but it feels so human and beautiful that i fell into it anyway.

"Every step he closer to Tennal was in full acceptance of his own destruction.
Tennal leaned in. They shouldn't do this. Surit couldn't remember why. [...]
He had been lying to himself. He had never been indifferent--he wanted this, he wanted Tennal, and there was no space for anything in his headbut the hot crackle of energy in Tennal's every movement.

Surit worked in a universe of fixed possibilities. Tennal was a chaos event. Surit was drawn to it like a gravity well.

In Surit's mind, Tennal was both an open flame in a fuel depot and someone Surit could rely on completely. And he didn't seem to see a contradiction.

THEY MAKE ME INSANE

with that being said -- i do feel like it was a liiiitle slow at times. that's my only complaint. maxwell has a loyal reader in me!