Overly flowery writing that masks a basic chosen one plot and takes a steep nosedive. It's like a more religious version of Shadow and Bone, with substantial elements heavily influenced by Evangelion and Gideon the Ninth. All good stuff in theory.

I was excited during the beginning. I could even forgive the first annoyances I had, like the protagonist making bizarre decisions. For some reason she follows video game logic where she insists on breaking out of a room where she's not in any danger, and going on this huge goose chase which ends in being captured again. I was like ok, she's young, hopefully she'll have character growth along the way. But I quickly learned that a) this was not going to happen and b) every other element in this book is just as weak (character, worldbuilding, plot, relationships, etc..).

I couldn't understand why she was so against cooperating with the Duke, when her lie is what lands her in his care in the first place. Why do it then? But we never find out because the plot starts too late in the story. I couldn't understand why Misery made the choices that led her here. And suddenly she gets thrown into the world of the Capital, which was overwhelming as a reader without proper context. Misery gets hung up on things that didn't seem weird to me in a book that's set in the future (like the clone-saints). Why does she find them weird, author? And what actually are saints anyway? We never find out. Some lore is drilled into you, but some of it, like the term ‘nixen’, is never explained and left me confused the whole time.

For some reason the author chose to use modern dialogue that’s very out of place. At one point Misery exclaims “Bitch, how dare?” for example. I was like oh god, please no. And “otoh” appears in the middle of a sentence, which I had to Google. Apparently it's an abbreviation, but it wasn't in capitals in the book, just in lowercase like a normal word within a sentence. So bizarre and jarring, especially as it's only Misery that talks this way.

The writing also becomes very archaic at times. Paired with the internet slang, it makes for a very strange reading experience. There far too many instances of the words holy, blessed, sanctified, etc. Take a shot every time the word holy appears and you'd die within half an hour. It needed to be toned down. The drama of it all is sometimes fun, but mostly silly: “Every syllable, every vowel every consonant is the sound of a star being born, of galaxies bursting into life.” I'd frequently read something like that and be like uh…ok. The book tries hard to sound all lofty like scripture all the damn time. It's repetitive as hell, so the effect is dulled and ends up sounding ridiculous.

I did appreciate the get in the robot Shinji nod though. That was the one pop culture reference that actually worked.

So, Misery. She starts off as the classic snarky take-no-shit protagonist. Kinda basic, but nothing terrible. But things take a turn at the end of the first act. She just kills a bunch of people and gets to conveniently avoid the consequences. It’s rarely mentioned again. And that’s the end of Misery taking action herself. She becomes blessed by the Larex Forge of course, so the plot simply happens to her. There’s no real character growth or developed relationships. It made for very boring reading. About half way through is where I started skimming, I just couldn't buy any of it. The book plays the religion so straight. It tries to convince us that Misery has some incredible connection with Alodia, but we barely saw them interact with each other. Alodia starts off cool (their first meeting is a vicious fight) and has an interesting personality, but as soon as Misery is reborn, she loses her teeth. She switches to a completely different person that is just Misery's simpering companion. They both become so much dumber in order for the plot to happen - they don’t read like adults at all. The other side characters are just as paper thin. There were a lot of them, but only one does something that actually affected the plot.

The book could have been elevated with chapters from different characters. Sow in some doubt, leave us with a few mysterious clues. I kept reading because I wondered if it will subvert the classic tropes and give the reader something to chew on. Sadly not, we just follow Misery through a very contrived plot. One character attempts to reason with her, but is literally tortured by her. Misery’s narrative of him being an ‘evil Heretic’ that tricked her was so off. The torture scene was randomly brutal.

I found the reveal at the end super anticlimactic since the whole book was played so straight, with no clever hints about what's truly happening. It would have been satisfying to have an actual mystery play out in this book. Instead we just followed Misery being clueless the entire time. It was all pointless. I almost dropped it at several points, but I'm glad I didn't, because now I know I was right, this was bad. 1.5 stars.