The YA bits of romance felt a bit forced(especially because both Finn and Millie were teased as possible lovers in a way that didn't really seem to go anywhere wth Millie, and was a bit weird since they were siblings), but I thought the world-building made some really courageous choices in just *going there* with the magic system. The cannibalism and weird sex-linked zombie infection felt like it *could* have been read as some gross Freudian commentary on sex or womanhood, except that it didn't feel at all Freudian. It just felt like some imaginative, kind of gross, but absolutely self-contained, self-consistent world-building that just happened to link sex, infection, death, nuns, cannibalism, and monsters together. And it's quite fearless in the cannibalism bit! So many battle scenes involving people literally eating the hearts of their enemies! Really quite gross! But in a good way! It worked!