I'm not sure how to review BITTERBLUE. It's quite well written, with a vivid and human protagonist facing a nearly impossible task: salvage a functional nation out of a land decimated by a lying, narcissistic telepath who could make anyone believe a thing just by telling them it was so. Everyone in the book is damaged at least a little by their run-ins with the ex-king, many characters profoundly so.
It's been months since I read BITTERBLUE, and here's the impression of it that remains with me: it's a profound meditation on truth, lies, and the impact of mental manipulation. Structured like a wound, festering into an abcess, that must be lanced in order to heal--and the experience of reading it is a lot like that. Painful in a deliberate way like scrubbing grit out of road rash, like waking up stuck to the sheets by your own clotting blood, and pulling the sheets with you to the shower to soak them off the wound bit by bit.
A powerful book, but difficult. Grateful for the reading of it, but not sure I'd read it again. Contains suicide.