The Last Smile in Sunder City

Started off as a potential 5 star book but then the initial intrigue wore off a bit, and while still solid, not yet a favorite.

A standout positive: the worldbuilding. I barely care about worldbuilding half the time, but this one did it wonderfully and I could perfectly imagine the world while barely a few pages in.

I also really liked the characters, and especially the side characters. Fetch himself is also great, though can be a bit infuriating (so much self-hate!) but in a way it's understandable and just a part of him. I do hope there's some progress in the next ones to learn to move on.

As this was the first book of the series, there's a lot of back and forth between present time and flashbacks, as well as suddenly a bunch of paragraphs about the world's history. Some of those prevented the flow of the story a bit.

Even though I wasn't super gripped by it, I'm still curious enough about the sequel and intend on checking that out. There is a lot of potential here and I hope the next ones takes advantage of that.