3.5 stars. This was a fun, quick read. I appreciate any fantasy book with a female protagonist, and also any fantasy book with a unique magic system. This had both. It was a little too fast-paced for my taste, and the characters left something to be desired, but I still think it's worth reading. It had a little bit of a Miyazaki feel to it with the strong young lady lead, the cool flying contraption, the talking animal companion, and the amorphous evil antagonist, but it lacked the really human element that makes Miyazaki stories so excellent. The very military feel of the ending made my eyes glaze over a little bit, and the love story felt forced. But there were a lot of elements of this book that I really liked.