I enjoyed this more than the first book. It started off super slow, but I wasn't really reading anyway so it worked out pretty awesome. I slowly got more and more into it and fell in love with the characters. There's such a great balance of personalities. Whenever Lirael got to be too much or too down on herself, we had the Dog to pull her back and tell her what a twat she was being. We also got another character razzing Sameth later on and it was so satisfying. I need to get on the ball and read the last one.