I ended up liking this book by the end but the docked stars are for the pace of the book and the fact I’ve tried to read this 3-4 times before unsuccessfully and finally pushed through this time. The mythology is neat, there’s definitely some misogyny, and the character development is the main character is well done but takes forever. The middle felt like a nothing happened.  All that said, that should show how good the rest of the story is to get it up to 3.5. I know people who love this book and would argue its merits until they’re blue in the face, but I probably won’t re-read it