I'm going to give this 4.5/5 rounded down to a 4 for Goodreads (driven primarily by my less than full enthusiasm for the first half), but confident that it will be a five on a reread. The second half of this book was unbelievably, unfairly good. The first half of this book and the entirety of the first book almost certainly became significantly better because of it.

The things that he was doing here with the themes really come to pay off in the back half of this book and get you to reconsider all of what was read up to that point. The emotional beats and how it wrapped up was nothing short of extraordinary. Nothing more to say than that. I can see why this guy is an inspiration to other writers in the genre.