This is a hard one for me to rate. The thing is, I was completely addicted to the story. I just had to know what was going to happen. But I also found myself strangely bored with some parts? I'm completely baffled. 
 There are so many moving pieces, working furiously to pull this story together and make it cohesive (which it was, the plot threads were tied up). There are betrayals within betrayals. Some you will see coming. Some you won't. Some you'll plead for blissful ignorance. The characters here are like a giant pit of snakes. All circling and snapping at each other and you JUST HAVE TO KNOW who will win. 
 But still, sometimes I was bored. 
 I think this novel could have benefitted from some page reductions. I remember reading one paragraph about the palace and how it was so big Mare would never learn the whole layout. Stuff like that could have disappeared. It would have made for a faster paced read, I think. 
 Other than that, I genuinely liked most of it. I liked Mare. I'm sort of ambivalent about the rest of the characters. There were too many love interests in the book. I think the ending put a solid fix to that. The writing was good. The plot was interesting and what kept the book going. I think the author did an excellent job with the plotting of the novel. Yes there are Hunger Games elements. Yes there are Red Rising elements (though I'm really not sure which was released first). But the plot, while not necessarily new, stood on it's own, or at least, kept it interesting. 
 I loved the idea of the magic system here. I loved how different Silvers and their respective houses had their own abilities and I think the author put most of those abilities to good use in the world building. I loved how this felt like both the future and the distant past (100 years of war, poor peasant folk, Kings, Queens, all melded with modern/advanced technology like cameras and screens, etc.) I thought the world building overall was pretty awesome and maybe the best part of the book. 
 It isn't my favorite fantasy this year but I will definitely continue with the series. I can't wait to see what happens next.