We all need more standalones in the world, yay! I’m just gonna be really straightforward and say if you loved Percy Jackson as a kid, this is kinda like that but much more violent and a little less humorous BUT it has a nice side of snarky gods. I did find myself bookmarking a number of quotable sections that had me reflecting a bit about friendship and weapon choices, and war— you know those weekend time-passers. This is a story of finding belonging in a harsh (brutal, masochistic) community, testing loyalties, believing in friends, and most importantly reckoning with past mistakes—so there’s like 5% romance which I also loved to see the focus slide away from. It’s super fast paced with lots of twists—an ideal book to get you out of a book slump.