I got 70% of the way through this book and then dropped it for months because life was hard and it's a book you have to be in a certain mood for

Reminds me a lot of the last few books in enders game, where all the setup gets to talking about the people and the religion. I actually would have preferred more interpersonal and less religious, but it could have been worse. Very lyrical, not so many characters I can't keep track and some great quotes

Immediately bought the 3rd book audiobook but we'll see when I read it

Just innovative unlike other books I've read ( )

Loving this series. I'll have to pick up the third book soon. It's a lot of concepts and plot to wade through but it's definitely worth it. ( )

I gulped this book down after finishing Too Like The Lightning. It honestly stood up to binge reading. I thought I had Palmer's number this time through -- and in some ways I did in that twists were less shocking than they'd been in the first book -- but this still managed to be a genuinely thrilling book with a lot to think about.

Here's my final warning: I was the first person in my group to finish Seven Surrenders. Friends don't let friends read Ada Palmer alone. This is the sort of book that you need a buddy to digest with. ( )

I continue to enjoy this series and will read the third book. But. With this second book the style really began to wear on me. The faux-seventeenth century style --the page-long paragraphs of description of motives and emotion, all constantly fraught and fragile, the world-falling-apart-while-everything-of-consequence-takes-place-in-breathless-exchanges-in-a-boudoir, taking the Enlightenment idea of ideas mattering more than anything...-- this all begins to wear.

Holes in the ideas presented begin to grow massive (the whole world really banished gender? religion? and only a building of people in Paris are subverting this? Even after the 'Church Wars' this seems impossible to believe. That and 20 murders a year, worldwide, brings the entire system to its knees? Even in this future utopia that seems a stretch. And where are e.g. South America and Africa in this? And, for that matter and despite the nod to them, Asia and South Asia?)

But, complaints aside, in this are a lot of interesting ideas and questions, propositions even, continuing the first book. Weaknesses and warts, I still like this. ( )

See my review in 1st book of series. ( )