Please Note: I try to keep my reviews spoiler free, so I’m going to analyse while trying to remain intentionally vague and objectional. If you would like to read more about pacing or intricacies like trope development, this won’t help.
Firstly I’m going to clearly state that the narration of this story was an easy 5 stars. At both regular and faster speeds the pronunciation was clear and concise. I would be comfortable playing this at any speed I needed to, and the voices were impressively diverse. I would highly recommend the audiobook for this alone, but it IS awkwardly split. The main reason I would give this a 4.5 if I could is because it was just teetering between the two ratings. There are chapters that are over 90 minutes long with multiple perspectives, so it felt a little messy to not have clear stopping points in place. However, I finished this story with very little breaks so I didn’t find that it impacted my enjoyment.
Additionally, there are several references to terminology that was never explained (It’s easy to infer, but that’s not the point), so sometimes it was frustrating since this is the first of M.L. Wang’s work I have experienced. For the most part it was a true standalone, but I was always curious if I were missing those definitions from earlier novels. Otherwise, the content and plot integrity itself was flawless.
Finally, there are several scenes that some people could find distressing. I couldn’t honestly say that there were parts of this story that I disliked, or that felt unnecessary for the story to unfold. Without spoilers that’s all I can say. Please read other reviews if you feel like this is cause for concern, as I’m sure they will give better content warnings than I am able to.