I still thought this was a little too violent for my taste (though not as bad as the first one), but at least I knew that going in this time. And I guess it is military fantasy, so that is sort of baked in. But even though there are still some things I didn't love about this book, the characters' journeys are just so good. This one goes hard on Rin's character and it doesn't let up. You understand where Rin is coming from, but it's hard to watch her make decisions with these horrible consequences. I can't say I'm rooting for her, and think I know where the third book is going (and I'm dreading it), but I still want to watch how we get there.
I appreciated some of the characters from the first one more here, especially Kitay. The discussions about the Hesperians were also super interesting.