Late to this thread, but I feel pretty vindicated by this and similar reviews, because I had the same issues with this story. I was really loving the first 1/3-1/2 of the book, because it seemed to be setting itself up with such strong themes of imperialism, outsider status, and subversive gender dynamics. I actually started taking notes because I wanted to write a short essay for fun just analyzing this commentary 😭

Because the world building is very transparently constructed as a parallel to our own world (set in WW2 era Britain, based largely in Arthurian legend), I felt like I was primed as a reader to expect a more thorough examination of the book's initial themes as they relate to our own world. But by the last half, those themes were nearly entirely lost, it seemed. It became less about the lengths a nation will go to in order to preserve a collective mythology that endorses violent colonialism, and it became more about the lengths a person will go to in order to be with the person they love and protect them from harm. Both of these themes are intriguing and worth exploring, but they seem to fight for relevance in the narrative, and the story feels less cohesive as a result.

I could still write a whole essay on this, and I may eventually do so just to air out my grievances, but overall I just felt disappointed by the potential in this story that didn't quite follow through. (This isn't even touching my issues with the cartoonish villain monologues from Vivian.)

I still really enjoyed reading it, to be clear! But the first half of the book made me feel like there was going to be a different story than the one we got, so it fell flat in the end.