This is a hard book for me to rate and review. It probably is more of a 3.5 to be honest.

I liked so much of what I read--the characters are very real; they act and react in ways you would expect and I really enjoyed how this book handled trauma. So often in fantasy, the emotional and psychological repercussions are glossed over or ignored entirely. This book, however, manages to create a trauma narrative that rings true and painfully accurate; it's portrayal of a healing community is wonderful as well. Guilt, fear, and regret are very well presented and you never get the sense these emotions are manufactured or artificial--I would recommend the book on this alone, honestly. As a healing narrative it does something I can't recall having read before in this genre.

Unfortunately, there was a lot I didn't like so much. I think most of all the pacing felt very uneven. The plot falls into a series of repetitive events: something strange happens, someone gets injured, the characters go see someone for help, the narrative provides an infodump through experts that are introduced seemingly only to give context, they sleep, and repeat. It becomes rote, nearly, reading about going places-talking to people-sleeping-repeat and it takes away from the very effective character work being done.

The writing itself is strong overall, except I felt that the author tends to stop the action in order to provide an inner monologue for the narrator. Things happen and then we have paragraphs of the narrator thinking about the events while they're happening. This introspection is good but perhaps would have been better if done AFTER the event. These monologue-breaks prove to be somewhat uneven in terms of a cohesive narrative

I also felt a bit uncomfortable regarding the relationship between the three main characters. The narrator cares very much for her fellow escapee but they are stymied on a physical relationship until a special man enters the story and solved their intimate issues. The male character isn't very well developed at all, honestly--he's more plot device that person. I enjoy having a polyamorous relationship presented rather than the tired old love triangle trope, but the way it's written leaves me a bit cold to it.

Overall I did enjoy this book. I think the author presents something different, something needed for this genre. It's definitely worth a read if you're tired of the same old fantasy tropes. ( )