Stop me if you've heard this one before: Books never usually make me cry, but this one basically made me cry.

Gods damn it.

I love Baru Cormorant as a character. She's a fantastic protagonist. As a person? All the feelings layered on top of each other. Love her, hate what she does, hate that what she does doesn't make me love her any less. She's scary as hell and so damned vulnerable. It hurts to read her, and I desperately need more.

The rest of the writing is great, too - clear prose, nice descriptions, intriguing intrigue, moderately cool worldbuilding, whatever.

I am 200% here for more of Baru in the sequels that can't come soon enough, and for the shitty world she lives in to come crumbling down around her. I can handle her going down with it. I don't think I can handle her going down alone.

My feelings on this are a mess. Just read the damned book. It hurts, and they say suffering shared is halved.