First, the style. This book has a very distinctive voice that hits you as soon as you start, never letting up. I think this might be divisive. Everything is so vivid and evocative, driven by all the senses. From taste to touch to vision to smell to hearing, everything is filtered through this prismatic rainbow-infused lens. It honestly feels like sensory overload, at times making it hard to follow, but this works because the first-person protagonist themselves often suffers from sensory overload. It really puts you into the shoes of the main character in that sense. I had never heard the audiobook narrator before, but Vico Ortiz's gravely, low voice also accentuates how detached the main character feels from her environment, creating this hazy dreamlike atmosphere. Like I said, it may not work for everyone, but I think it made the book feel distinctive and worked in tandem with the character.

What is the book about? Well, it's an anticapitalist lesbian revenge story. My own political beliefs aside, I think this book did a good job of putting forward lots of different perspectives spurred by rapid industrialization. From the idea of fuedal aristocats to progressive philantrophic capitalists, new money vs old money, idealism versus harsh reality, the concept of progress as a continual journey, and so on. This book is simmering with class strife. There isn't necessarily a ton of labor politics or discussions about workers and unions despite it being such a critical part of the themes, but there is certainly a lot focused on corporate greed. Religion is also discussed a lot, and I liked hearing the different creation myths and how they were interpreted in such different ways. Also, this book is maybe the most lesbian fantasy I have ever read. Pretty much every character is a lesbian, and the book does try to explore the spectrum of people that identify as such. And beyond the (graphic) sex, I think it tints the book and the relationships in a unique way. 

The book is split into what feels like 3 sections, and the revenge aspect sometimes feels a bit meandering within these sections. The first section focuses a lot on found family, with large passages of time. I really enjoyed this section, with the book feeling freewheeling and developing out a lot of important character bonds. The second section is a major shift from the first section. It is much more focused on a specific event, introducing a ton of new characters and political factions. It does not help that characters are referred to both with their given name as well as a "virtue" name such as Perfection, Integrity, Dedication, Candor, Truth, etc., and sometimes they have other names as well. Considering how many new characters there are, this made it harder for me to get my feet underneath me. If the book had started with this, I think it would have given me more time to get oriented, but since it's halfway through, it feels like I need to figure out what's going on right away. Indeed, at times I felt like I struggled with some of the motivations and political setups here, though I did eventually understand all the different players. This section is also kind of insane and also very horny, and outside of that confusion, I loved not knowing what was coming around the corner. Finally, the ending. I did not love what happens from a plot perspective, with the ending feeling a bit rushed and strange. That said, the very last scene was amazing, and I love the way it ties everything together.

Overall, I can confidently say I have not read anything like Metal From Heaven. It is a fever dream of a book with a distinctive voice and fully confident in its messaging. Even though there are elements that I think could have been better like the ending or clearer like some of the larger world politics, I was fully absorbed reading it. I wish more books were as uncompromising with their identity.