What a fantastic book! It's a YA that harkens back to some of the best examples of good old-fashioned storytelling, like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or The Chrysalids, but with a dark, photographic twist. Readers of all ages, most especially adults, will enjoy it. The writing is quite sophisticated--Ransom doesn't talk down to his readers, which is nice. 
 It started off strong, and then lagged a little bit before it got quite addictive for me and I struggled to put it down. 
 Still, even though I absolutely loved it, I'm not driven to read the next books in the series, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps I felt their story was complete, even though the ending clearly set up the sequel.