This was excellent! 4 stars, maybe 4.5? I was torn on whether to land on a 4 or 5 for goodreads. I’m shocked this is self-published. The pacing was really good, the plot was great, and most importantly for me, the characters were believable and interesting. This is a high quality genre read.

My nitpicks are that it was still a bit wordy for me. There were parts that could have been shorter. But as a whole the book didn’t drag. There was good tension throughout as one thing got resolved and a new thing came up. Some of the best handling of that I’ve read.

I wasn’t totally sold on Takeru and Misaki’s arc given where they started. As the person with less power, I don’t think Misaki should have given herself equal blame for the state of her marriage. And the closure with Robin felt a little too tidy. I think I needed a little bit more there to be satisfied.

My favorite bits were Mamoru coming to grips with the Empire’s propaganda. As someone who’s worldview has changed dramatically, I have a lot of compassion for that. The battle in the middle of the book was really impressive as well. Would be fantastic to see animated!

I haven’t felt sucked into a book in a long time, and this one managed it!