I love how much the main character bucks Fantasy Heroine tropes. There’s no Not Like Other Girls bs — she likes dresses and flowers and has no interest in fighting or riding horses, and the narrative doesn’t punish her for it, while also treating tomboy female characters with the same acceptance. Some parts were a little expected and some dialogue was a bit much, but it avoided the things that annoy me about similar fantasy books, so I was willing to forgive the missteps. 

And I’m glad I did — the end was ROUGH, but so good. Usually this kind of ending upsets me and I only realize it was good after some time, but this time I accepted it right away.

 But uh if you just finished Gideon the Ninth (like I did), maybe read a palette cleanser book between them. The endings are…… weirdly similar.