The best way to describe this book is to say that Mercedes Lackey does a less than average job writing a YA novel, and it comes out better for it. 
 There are so many YA novels out there fall into the same hokey pits over and over. There are only so many "I am special and I can't believe others can't see it", sketchy love triangles, and "I'm the chosen one" series I can stand to read. Over and over we see the same. damn. story. 
 Mercedes Lackey doesn't seem to be able to fall into these traps, try as she might. We never get a juvenile love triangle, we never get the idea that the main character is innately better or more powerful than anyone else, and the reader never gets smacked by insane amounts of teenage angst. The character stands up as someone that can't believe the way things are done elsewhere, who is both better and worse at many things because she has a different background, and besides some guilt and self doubt never falls into a dark deep spiral that forces readers such as myself to root against her. 
 On to the next in the series...