I found the first half of the book very slow. I couldn't get into it and found myself reading the words and not absorbing them, thus having to re-read a lot of the first 200 pages. However, I persevered and I found that although slow, the first half was necessary in developing the characters and telling us their backstories and situations. I personally prefer action packed stories where something happens from the very beginning and this book was not one of them. I did like the second half, where things began to happen. This book was a nice read, I was interested for the most part and think the characters are well developed and the book is well written. I would recommend it to others, however, I probably will not read the rest of the series :)