Fun ride even for first-timers

I volunteered to read this book without having read the first book in order to help gauge its readability by others in my same situation; I've had the series on my TBR forever, so this seemed like a good opportunity to finally dive in! And considering I enjoyed it a lot, I'd say it's perfectly readable even if you haven't read the series opener. Yes, you kind of get thrown into the middle of a situation in this book and there are some things you feel like you may have missed out on, but there's enough background info shared that you still get a sense of what happened and what's currently going on. All it did was make me want to go back and read the first book even more!

The narration was absolutely phenomenal. I've been really bad about getting sleepy while trying to read physical books or ebooks lately, and that definitely wasn't a problem with this audiobook. It was so engaging! Every primary character had a unique voice, and the pacing and drama came across great. I did have a little bit of trouble keeping track of who some of the characters were (though I think I had everybody figured out pretty well by the end) but I mainly attribute this to me being a very visual learner and I wasn't able to see the names written on the page.

This one does start out a little slow, but the world-building is rich and I love the concept behind the telepathy ("magic system" if this was a fantasy book). The Gentle Hands vs. Archons setup feels very Star Wars, a classic Jedi vs. Sith scenario. Much of the tension throughout the book was interpersonal or political, but the last several chapters consist of a final battle sequence that was very cinematic. I was picturing everything in my head exactly like a movie. There was also a nice plot twist about halfway through that caught me by surprise, although looking back now, I see how things were leading up to it. Very nicely executed.

I'll definitely be checking out the remainder of the series now!

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