Was I just obtuse for not figuring out the "Balls" thing?

Anyway, this is a solid but long book, I believe it's longer than Bitterblue. You should probably read it slower than I did, because there are some parts I didn't grasp the best because I was rushing.

This is markedly different than the previous 3. More sexual content, a bit more sexually explicit. It is not You-Know-Who-Adjacent this time.

There's several point of view characters, including Giddon (which made me excited. I like Giddon), Bitterblue, Lovisa, and others. Honestly if it wasn't for the Lovisa parts I'm not sure you could call this book YA. I'm not entirely sure you can anyway, since the only parts that have a young voice take up maybe a fourth or fifth of the book.

It's a GREAT read, but if you are expecting something along the lines of the previous books, don't.

I'll be clear, I really don't like when there's a significant age-gap in couples, but that's usually more "oh they got together when she was 17" or something. Giddon and Bitterblue sort of works in my opinion because they start as best-friends in Bitterblue, and don't really grow into anything until Bitterblue is 20-something. It did not make me as uncomfortable as I thought it would when I first detected hints of it in this book. But you know, your mileage may vary.