Overall I really enjoyed this book while I was reading it. The writing is pretty strong, and the author is great at humanizing her characters, even side characters, to a degree that makes me want to study her writing. And the way the gods were integrated into the story was very fun.

On the other hand, I found the animal-themed orders into which society is divided rather tiresome and at times silly (The bears are ascetics? Has the author met a bear?), and the fact that the plot is set against the backdrop of a formalized game-like competition for the throne that has apparently been running this empire for a thousand plus years felt more distracting than helpful.