If the purpose of the book was to make me flinch, well, then, I did, multiple times. Half the book reads like a grotesque catalogue of Tearling's social evils. It might have been written in good faith - the author mentions her political views in the afterword - but it comes across as something added for shock value alone. There's a whole arc that is in the book just to show how horrible everything is, and there's so much senseless cruelty that it's, frankly, disturbing.

I also have major reservations about plot developments that change things for the original series, particularly when it doesn't make any sense for the characters not to know of it later on. More so when the choice not to introduce Dramatic Birth Secrets, Destiny, Noble Sacrifices by Parents, etc was one of the things that made the first three books so appealing.