Just an update, I'm stalled out about 40% into Gardens. A lot of reviews claim the book is confusing or dense, but the operative word I'd use is obfuscated. There's clearly a world, and some larger conflict, but what the individual characters, or even their larger factions, are doing remains vague. I put it down after a couple weeks, and in picking it up again I wasn't lost but I couldn't recall the significance of anything/anyone.
Furthermore, and I understand this gets better as the series goes on, but it's super clear that the author based this world/story on their DnD campaign. You can feel the novel shuddering under the weight of the Worldbuilding Bible, and it's really clear which character(s) were the author's player character during the campaign. I'll probably try to dive back in over winter break, but the further I get from a book I've set down the more the odds of revisiting dwindle.