This was an unexpected pleasure!

I LOVED this book!
This book played with stereotypes and the conventional to subvert them in mind fucky ways, and I am SOOOO here for it!
It wasn't perfect, but it's an awesome beginning to a series.

I have to say though, Alin, FUCKK ME HE'S SO ANNOYING 🤬
I know it's deliberately done by Wight, but it's too affective. The guy is an arrogant, glory-seeking, insecure, attention-seeking little prick.
He reminds me of Homelander from The Boys, Alin is so insecure and wants everyone to love him and think he's amazing, and he's willing to do anything to achieve that.

The guy nearly killed a bunch of kids while starting a battle that could have easily been talked out, because he wanted to look like a hero, and in situations where people are trying to genuinely save lives, he takes it as a competition and get pissed off at the person who did the saving because it wasn't him looking like a hero.

I genuinely think the character has traits of psychopathy and sociopathy.

So if I'm right, that means the prophesised Savior-Of-All, is actually a psychopath.

I believe he'd create or cause a disaster just to swoop in and save it and be seen as a hero and have everyone throwing flowers at him and worshipping him.

As for Leah, I don't know what her deal is, but Will Wight took the age-old story of a kid with a crush willing to go to the ends of the earth to save a girl, to the extreme. Not one, but two boys went through shit to save her.

And then, jokes on them, because she didn't need to be saved as she's undercover or something and is a princess and could have left at any time.

Oh, and then, turns out the bad guys might actually not be the bad guys, and might be the guys forced to do bad things to stop the even bigger bad guys from coming along and destroying the world, similiar to Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire.
So now the bad guys might not be the bad guys and the good guys might be the worse guys.

All I know is I'm rooting for the main character Simon. The guy saves people, even when he doesn't know why, he just feels like it's the right thing to do, and that's a man I'd follow. So, whoever goes up against Simon in the next book, they're the bad guy to me 😂

As for the magic, there are elements I see from Cradle and the Abidan, as this trilogy is connected to a wider shared universe.
So far I'm not a huge fan of the magic, the whole gate stuff is interesting and like your own little pocket universe that you draw power from, but so far I'm not a huge fan, so we'll see if that improves with the next two books.

Kai was a funny character, but given how he talks, acts and is physically described...I have suspicions he's

Ozriel from the Abidan

, but I have doubts on that being the case, I think it might just be a coincidence and the fact Travis Baldree did the same voice and performance for both characters. 
As for the dolls.....I don't know what to say about them, it's a bizarre addition to the story...so...yeah 👀

Also, the ending, 😟😦😧😯😲😱🤯
Overall, I really enjoyed the book.
The pacing was good, except for Alin's parts, which were boring and annoying.
I'm excited to continue with The Crimson Vault!

Edit:
After reading book 2, things I thought in this book was clever setup, I now realise was actually just laziness disguised as mysterious setup.
So I've lowered my score from 4.5 to 3.75, because it's not as good as Cradle book 1.