Review: Overall Enjoyable
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2012
I had something of a hard time getting into this book, but after a while I got drawn into the story and the characters in a major way.  I am generally reluctant to read "book one of X" because so often I find that book one just isn't enough to get me interested, a teasing glimpse and then "to be continued."I thought this, however, was a good solid "book one" because there were some actual resolutions, or at least a natural closing point rather than a forced cliffhanger.  I was entertained and felt satisfied at the end, like a good stopping point had been reached, but was still interested in reading more about the world.I am not *entirely* sure whether I missed some clues along the way or whether the author deliberately withheld some rather vital information for the purposes of a major plot twist.  When I came to the realization, and I'm really trying to avoid spoiling things here, that all was not quite as it had been portrayed (or at least as I had read it), my immediate reaction was "Hey, that's cheating!" However, my second thought was that it was actually a *very* clever way to handle it, and my third was that I might just be oblivious to clues and signposts.  As I have thought more about it, my ultimate opinion is much more on the "very clever" rather than "cheating" and I have to appreciate an author who can hoodwink me so thoroughly.At any rate, the twist did catch me by surprise, obviously, and there were other unexpected twists and turns along the way.In some respects, the characters are something of standard types - it would be fairly easy to come up with labels for them, like Tough but Sensitive.  However, in my opinion, the author is able to take the characters beyond the label.  I liked the central three (then four) quite a bit and they were charming people rather than cardboard props.I do think the book could benefit from some additional polishing.  However, in its favor, the errors obviously weren't too distracting because I never started marking them in the Kindle, which I normally do when they start taking me out of the story.