In an Orchard Grown from Ash: A Novel | 
so-soThe whole “narrowly focused on the emotional lives of a few protagonists, plot is irrelevant” thing worked for me in Wilder Girls as YA horror and in Burn Our Bodies Down as YA horror in which the emotions actually cause the plot. It doesn‘t work so well in this duology, which has four theoretically adult (but emotionally very young) protagonists and opens a LOT of interesting magic-system and world-politics plot loops… and closes very few of them
Clare-Dragonfly The characters‘ emotional arcs are beautifully and wrenchingly drawn; I was fully sucked into (and infuriated by) the Argyros siblings‘ belief that they all thought the same way while being unable to see past their own damn noses to understand the others‘ points of view, and what happened to each of them was fitting and satisfying. But I wanted answers to the plot questions, too! (edited) 11mo
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