What a difficult book to rate this has to be a 2.5.stars which in itself is an odd rating but this was an odd book which I kinda love hated. I was determined to finish this due to hype and wanting to hit a GR challenge so I forced myself with this. Downsides The first few chapters are utter shite. Written obstentatiously with incredibly difficult language serving no purpose other than vanity writing made me want to dnf. There was far too much (and this persisted book-wide but was prevalent in the initial chapters) bits of concept, partial ideas or bits of story that made no sense and alluded to an explanation being offered to make it fall into place but then this explanation was not offered with random 4th wall esque breaking so you are reading without understanding whaat you are reading - a frustrating and confounding narrative that irritated rather than titillated. The editing of this book was shocking so much made no sense and the narrative in reverse annoyed me. Post-book we had a list of socities explained THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT THE START. I read 25% of the book and it still took me googling andnreading wikis and spoilers to understand wtf was going on and what Lethe was. The "then" narrative added nothing. Thats poor writing. Upsides Having said all of that, I loved Alex as a character she was truly bad ass so raw so developed and so likable. The societies were interesting, the plot very twist and kept me guessing and at the 50 - 60% mark I started enjoying this. The ending felt stunted but set the staage for book 2 and I cant tell if im desparate to know what happens next or couldnt care less. A bit of a mindfuck of a book to be honest so here's my weird review and rating.