I’m not really sure how I feel about this book. At the beginning, I really liked it. I liked most of the characters, especially Namir and Roach. I didn’t like Chalis at first, but she became an interesting character as the book went on. I liked the grittiness of the battles and was really engaged with each one.
But overall, my reaction was a little meh when I finished. Just like “Oh, that’s it? Okay.” The book felt like a series of events more than a cohesive story. A lot of characters died, which I expected, but the deaths didn’t seem to have much impact on the survivors. I wanted the main set of characters to be more of a family with more camaraderie. Instead, it just felt like they were a group of people that didn’t really care about each other. They were just there. I kept expecting things mentioned early on to become important later, but they didn’t. I was especially disappointed by all the build up around Thara/SP-475 with very little pay off around her.
So in the end, I really wanted to like it more than I did. I really like war stories, but I like that you generally see the impact of the war on people. I didn’t feel like this book really showed that. That could have been because the book was almost solely from Namir’s point of view. The book might have been stronger if it had POV from other characters to show what the battles were doing to them.