This was so disappointing because it set up so many interesting questions in the first half and then just didn’t engage with them in any meaningful way. The world is an alternate earth, one with gods who engage with mortals, or at least used to, and in which generations of colonialism were upended within the last century. The questions of revolution vs. revenge were just neatly hand-waved at the end by a single character who promises to fix things.

There’s also a thread about whether the gods lead their believers or follow them, and it just sorta disappears, which is disappointing, because it could otherwise lend itself to a fascinating exploration of the parallels to the real world. Perhaps it gets picked up in book 2, but I doubt I will ever find out.

Also, some really dumb reveals towards the end, and a character whose battle prowess border on deus ex machina ultimately undermined all the cool ideas set up in the first half of the book.