The second half of this book is way better than the first, with way more intrigue. I do think a large part of that though is that once you’ve read half the book you start to comprehend a little more about the world. 

Usually I’m okay with continuing reading until it makes sense, and I just accept that with sci-fi and fantasy I’m gonna be lost for a bit, but at no stage of this book did I fully comprehend either the necromancy or the interactions between the houses lmao. 
Maybe the confusion was compounded by the fact that I was listening on audiobook so I wasn’t reading the new words, but it also felt like there were 100 nicknames for every person in this book and a lot of the time I was just guessing who we were talking about. 

All that confusion out of the way, I definitely did enjoy the intrigue in this book. The ending was super engaging and if I was mildly less confused I’d probably jump straight into the next book. I think I’ll need to read some summaries though, and I’m not sure if I’ll continue the series as it was kinda a struggle for me to get through. 

Idk why this whole review is sounding negative, I did like the premise and I personally didn’t mind the crassness, I thought it was fun. And I liked that Gideon reacted like a real person to situations (i.e. with swearing and refusing to do something stupid without asking questions). 
Basically I think this book has lots of potential that sadly didn’t work for me, but I’m sure it will work for other people.