Tethered Spirits Book Review

Tethered Spirits has several strong points: solid prose, decent characters, several strong ideas, a good plot that supports its action elements with some mystery/questions, and strong use of its cored idea/inspiration. But it also suffers from some significant technical flaws.
It’s takes nearly sixty percent of the book to pass before the narrative actually starts and became concentrated enough to hold my interest. Before that the book reads like a travel log; the characters are progressing towards some goal, and theres the occasional action scene, but the core plot doesn’t progress, there’s no answers provided or teased, no new questions added, nothing new added. The characters interact but don’t progress in their individual arch, and the major character arch is only teased (ultimately revealed around that sixty percent mark) rather than exploded or activated. This resulted in me having little to no motivation to read the book for the first sixty percent.
The second major flaw I have is with the characters; they’re decent on a personality and complexity level but most of them lack proper arch: Saya has a plot but no arch, no progression or anything to invest in. Kesari has the strongest arch, with good progression and investment and growth, but the full she’s diminished by Aleida (the other major character arch) who while different shares or is too close to too many of the same emotional notes (grief, despair, failure, etc.) Aleida has the pieces of a strong character narrative, but never really amounts to much investment due to her role as antagonist and that the conclusion of her personal narrative feels predetermined. (The twist in her narrative is also somewhat predictable due to the laws of meaningful writing and Chekhov’s gun.)
I full enjoyed the last 40% percent of the book, though; the books various strength are brought into full focus, the environments become more distinct and interesting, and the plot becomes more concentrated and ends strong with a good tease for book two.