This is quite wonderful, but I'm not sure quite why I found it so, or how to describe it. There are some very standard tropes -- for example, the young person arrives at the city as an innocent yokel, but turns out to be destined for greatness. In this case it's a she instead of the usual he.

I'm usually very impatient with powerful characters that can subvert reality, but in this case I quite happily tolerated gods. The protagonist, Yeine, is simultaneously smart, and tough, and needy. I found it suspenseful, and the language and imagery beautiful. The world is somewhat of the standard-issue feudal fantasy, but not quite.