Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man who doesn't care for speculative fiction anymore or I simply didn't read the same book as apparently everyone else on my friends list, but I simply did not have a good time with this book. I saw repeated warnings that "the first third/half is really weird, but just stick with it!" So I did, and occasionally I did catch small glimpses of what this book could have been, but unfortunately it never got there for me.

If nothing else, I can't deny that this was an ambitious book. This was the kind of story where domino pieces were set up very early, only to fall into place at just the right moment well after you'd forgotten about them. Which is awesome, I love a Push (2009) (god, does anyone even remember that movie?) kind of situation where the story hinges on this insanely complex and elaborate plan that a character spent multiple in-fiction years crafting and setting up. It's supposed to feel satisfying to watch it all finally come together, but here I just got too bogged down in all the scenes and side characters leading up to that payoff. The word that kept coming to mind was "unnecessary". A lot of the goofy nonsense could have been pared down and I feel the central plot would've benefited from it.

One of the main characters (who is human, by the way) has been removed from society for a long time, and when she's forced to interact with people again there's a lot of the "Humans Through Alien Eyes" trope where she comments on how odd Americans watch "television" and wear "clothes". It's boring, it's not funny, and whenever I encounter it in any media I don't even have the energy to roll my eyes, and this was no exception. A lot of the attempted humor felt like mid-2000's "lol so random XD" culture, and maybe it would have landed for me if I was still 13. And then there was other stuff I just did not care for such as a few separate scenes where there are dozens of dogs murdered, there are two characters that are honest-to-god lions that were given way too much attention and focus, there's some casual homophobia thrown in for no reason (this was really strange because there are literally no queer characters at all), and there's a flashback to the first of many times that the protagonist was murdered because she resisted against her adopted brother trying to rape her. Every time I came across one of these passages I wanted to stop reading, but I pushed through because of this supposed big payoff.

Some variation of "I can explain later, but now isn't the time" must've been repeated over a dozen times in this book. As a reader, I was growing just as confused and irritated as the side character that was the target of these pleas, and then when the time finally comes we're treated to massive blocks of infodumping exposition where no dramatic action is happening. I appreciated that most of the bigger questions I had - save for all these supposedly dangerous enemies lurking in the shadows that we never see or encounter - were answered at the end, but I just wish they had been introduced more naturally instead of all at once in what felt like a lecture.

It was certainly unique, but I'd be hard pressed to recommend this one. This book unfortunately falls into that dubious category of "liked the premise, wish someone else had written it."