I didn't ultimately like what this book did. I didn't like Rin, by which I mean I didn't like the way the book concluded her arc, or rendered her emotions or reactions. They seemed inconsistent and poorly thought out in a way that signalled YA protagonist syndrome. The book didn't take off until we'd done the campus novel portion in the front 40%, which was full of Kuang's worldbuilding notes and held very little of substance; held very little that wound up being relevant to the other acts. This book needed a much stronger editorial hand to get it to a place of thematic consistency.

This said, I started to like the book better in the middle. Parts of Act II felt inventive and interesting. The whole didn't use these components adequately, and I liked these facets of the book more than I ever really liked the book. I think Kuang was (perhaps is) a relatively immature writer and that this has good "new adult" appeal—a book that doesn't shy away from topics such as war crimes and torture and genocide but that, nevertheless, has a relatively simplistic and didactic ultimate message. The fact that Rin's concluding thoughts are that the gods were her instruments rather than the other way around when she's just been granted institutional power she didn't earn as well based on [checks notes] her genetic heritage and intends to use it to become a hellion isn't really compelling me to read on in her arc. Why would Altan (this was an audiobook for me, pardon my spelling) spend all of Act II doing active and abusive violence toward her trying to get her power out and then... hand her a unit to command? The guy at the end who's like "it could never be a foreigner... it has to be you" what. what are we putting across here. I don't even <em>want</em> to think about this too hard, which is a sign of a book that doesn't feel worth the investment of my time. I might read on, but I don't particularly think I'm likely to enjoy it any better.