Status Updates From Walks with Spirits

Ugh, I usually don't mind hunting scenes in my books, but there is something about whale-hunting that I find revolting. And it doesn't matter that it's framed with a respect to the animal here and that nothing goes to waste. I was still very firmly on the side of those humpbacks. I'm kind of questioning my morality here (pigs are really smart too and I eat them regularly).

I love marriage of convenience as a romance trope, but clearly, otherwise forced marriage is making reading a book almost impossible to me. I'm not even sure I want to finish it at this point...

I love the descriptions of nature and everything, it just feels so peaceful to me

Ugh, I hoped this wouldn't happen...
Also, the work with gender and pronouns is really interesting in this one, especially concerning Two Rivers. If this was a "regular" LGBTQ+ work I would say that she gets misgendered a lot, but that doesn't seem to be implied? (Well, unless it's Thunder Warrior...)

Did I start yet another book? ... No comment...
This isn't ownvoices, but sensitivity readers were involved and the foreword gives all the right signs.
So far the story is very worldbuilding heavy which I think would bother most readers, but... I'm kind of eating it up, even if it sometimes gets a bit dry...

“The bodies did not lay flat, but were interned in a sitting position with their knees drawn up and head pressed down, the way a baby rested in its mother’s womb before being born. That is because these loved ones were not dead at all; they were being born into another level of existence where their lives would continue in a more enlightened fashion than they had experienced on earth. ”