2019 - I feel like I may upgrade my opinion of this one after it's had some time to sink in.

2022 - Yup. Reread this in anticipation of reading the sequel and definitely liked it more the second time around. There's quite a bit about the story that's deliberately opaque (i.e. the identity of the boy the main characters all seek), or runs off along tangents (i.e. I hope the business with Tracker's wolf eye has some relevance in the sequel), and piecing all that together while also acclimating to the idiosyncrasies of the author and the narrator (for example, James likes long conversations between pairs of characters where the speakers alternate without ever identifying who is saying which line of dialog) sort of made me bounce off it the first time. Much better the second time around, armed with familiarity.