[slaps roof] this plot can fit so many red herrings! you won't even know what to focus on at times, there's a murder to solve, a series of trials to win, a boy to seduce, a pantheon of gods to appease, an emperor and his henchmen to avoid, an armageddon to prevent, and flashbacks to dwell on for probably longer than you'd prefer! get excited!

the positives: -this is a very colorful world, and I enjoyed the way the settings were described and experienced by the characters. -the pantheon concept and the magic elements were interesting and creatively done, and there were many many twists and turns spaced relatively well throughout the book (until the end, there were so so many at the end). -it made me laugh throughout, and i enjoyed the banter between neema and some of the other characters.

the negs: -neema was a pretty boring narrator. the most interesting thing about her was sol. at one point someone calls her drab, and she protests, but its 100% true. there is no discernable difference between her character before and after the time jump, so she comes across as very young and naive. autistically pedantic, some might say. -while i appreciate the effort to show rather than tell, theres too much happening, as mentioned, and it clogs up the plot. -every time there was a big lead up to something, the payoff was generally anticlimactic. solving the murder, the fight between ruko and pike, the dragon trial, i could go on. -the villains were very cartoonish, and their motivations were not enticing, especially after some big reveals. -you can't really trust that anyone is who they say they are, which isn't inherently a negative, but it becomes one when multiple characters are doing the same gag. it just stops being a surprise. -the birds. everyone in reviews and forums seems to love the birds, but I struggled to like them as narrators. they just pulled focus a bit too much for me. -there were a lot of details throughout that felt more convenient than realistic to the plot, which irked me. some plot holes too, for sure.

but was i entertained? yes. would i read it again? probably not.

dnf'ing bc of SA, child murder/torture, and egregious misogyny, to name a few reasons. i can forgive the boy-book-style and i could grit my teeth against the male-gaze-descriptions and i could shake my head at all of the obviously borrowed references, but i am not able to push through an adult in charge saying that r*pe is allowed in their war-school games so long as the person isn't killed. im not desensitized enough for that.