I almost didn't finish this book and had I not paid money for it, I would have stopped. The romance triangle (web?) was so heavy-handed, choppy, forced, and cliche that it was actually just funny. The plot wasn't revolutionary are vastly original, but it was interesting, even if some of the symbolism throughout the book was a little bit much at times. The story was compelling enough to keep my reading and I can't say that I ever found it boring either. I don't know if the romance was supposed to come across the way that it did because of reasons I will not mention but if it wasn't intentional then well...oh boy. While I am glad I did finish this book, I don't think that this story lives up to the massive amount of hype that it gained earlier this year, I'm not entirely sure where that excitement came from unless it was that finale that jazzed everyone up. The conclusion even had me excited enough to look forward to the next book.