I have so many thoughts. Some good, some not so much. Let's just start by saying that for a debut, it was okay-ish.

PLOT
It is immediately clear that this is a slow story, extremely character-driven, meant to develop throughout several books, just as the author promotes it. This can both be a good and bad thing. Personally, while I like character-driven novels, I also want some scenes that forward the general plot and we only get that towards the very end of the book. The premise the novel is written on works, but it was too slow for me to fully enjoy.

WORLDBUILDING
The worldbuilding is quite interesting, obviously it's not explained in great detail since the majority of the story takes place in a village, but I'm curious about where we'll go in future books.

CHARACTERS
The two main characters are ok, their thoughts are well explored and you can make a good idea of their personality. I managed to emotionally connect with them, which is very good, considering they are literally children fo the entirety of the book. While Gus and Domino are somewhat lovable, the real problem is that the secondary carachters have the depth of a thin sheet of paper. Not a single one of them goes beyond a couple of stereotypical traits.

WRITING
Now let's come to the real problem at hand: the author is French and wrote the book in English, and that’s probably the main factor that caused some major problems with the writing. The words chosen to describe certain scenes of the book are sometimes VERY weird and out of place, often too formal, sometimes not enough. English is not my first language either, so I'm willing to overlook that, granted it improves a little in the next one. All things considered, I fairly liked the writing style, even though at times the text was overburdened with the character's thoughs.

Overall, this book was not what I expected, but it was a pleasant read and I plan on reading the second one as well.