so... this is the first book i've read that has taken me more than a day or two to get through in a while. in a good way and a bad way. in a good way because it's denser and more meaty than most of the smut i've been inhaling for the last couple of years. in a bad way because i did find it slow, and when i got to the 90% point and realized it was the setup for a series i was kind of like, more annoyed than happy? like sometimes i will do anything to stay in the world of the story for longer, but with this it felt like i would have preferred that it just wrap up. but in a good way because i DNF at the slightest provocation, and the fact that i stuck with this in spite of the slowness means i actually really liked it. i felt invested in what happened but it wasn't uncomfortably tense. there were a lot of surprises. masterful world building, i never felt info dumped, or lost, but just learned things as i went along. 

the romance, or romances?, did not hit for me. we'll see how they play out in book two. well i guess i'm going to try book two. i wasn't sure but it seems like subconsciously i had already decided.