It reads like a power fantasy for readers. It also reads as a teen novel with all the raging hormones and instantly falling in love that it entails. Regardless it is very well written and all of these things feel real and fleshed out. I love that the main conflict in the book has nuance in the sense that the "good guys" have done some dark shit. The world kind of has very villainous villains, but we don't know the whole story and there's a sense that maybe there was a reason they were such villains that we don't know yet. Overall the world is very intriguing. And the ending, though technically a cliffhanger and a start to the second book, doesn't feel all that bad.
That said, I don't know how I feel about reading the second book, as all that lovey-dovey stuff is too sweet for my taste.