Okay well my first impression of the book was I liked it. The main characters had a nice dynamic and were truely uncompromisingly good. Which was so refreshing. My only problem was the way they info dumped their backstories seemed way too unsubtle. And it felt like the writer was making excuses for the characters. And overdoing it in the process.
But still a solid 4 stars. Then the rest of the book happened and it completely fell apart. All the characters feel like caricatures instead of people. With tacked on backstories, angst and so on with little if any success at a seamless blending.
The culture was so thin and arbitrary it felt like a porno setting. Just a bunch of “Things are like this just because.” Might have been tolerable if it wasnt declared to be the norm in the entire universe. Which made me think this is an author fetish.
And the romance/sex was so wierdly done I couldnt tell if it was meant to be funny, serious erotic or what. Regardless it was really dumb and really put on display how bluntly and poorly written the characters and culture is.
The only reason I didnt give it two stars is because the cliffhanger was enough to make me give the next book a chance. Since it made me really want to see some people die.