I did not find this book excellent, or even like it all that much. If I am being honest, I mainly picked this up because the cover of this and subsequent books looked fucking nice. And that is one of the main reasons I am thinking of carrying on the series, it doesn't have much else to recommend it. However, it was easy to read and interesting in some places, so I finished it pretty fast, I guess. 
 Quite a few things bugged me about this book. One of them was the use of the Russian culture, although if I had not read reviews that pointed this out, I would not know about it at all as I know next to nothing about the culture. But just knowing that the author is so... lazy? indifferent? that she did not even do a tiny bit of research, kinda makes me unhappy. Also... I swear that, when reading Anna Karenina, a mother called her son 'Grisha'? So the whole trilogy is based on people whose entire power is summed up on a boys' name? But other people with knowledge have dealt with this, so I'll leave it here. 
 Another thing that annoyed me is this girls obsession with men and beauty! The obsession with men was annoying, because even when something interesting and dangerous was happening- she is going into this dangerous shadowy place with evil creatures!- she is still thinking of the man (who I have forgotten the name of) and bemoaning the fact that he does not like her back (and it turns out that he totally does, anyway). And then another man comes along! Look, I don't personally see why everybody is so against love triangles. They're overused, yes, but they're not that bad. But this was annoying! Both of the men she is drooling over are awful! There is one who practically ignores her to go and get drunk (on a drink that is practically not even alcoholic, apparently) and sleep with other women, and then there is the worse one who is just Bad. The romance, when it did happen, felt forced and put me off. I thought that it would have been much better if she and her childhood friends had stayed just that; friends. 
 The 'Darkling'! What a stupid name. He takes her without her will from where she is, and then uses her for his own gain, making her into a slave. He then kisses her against her will whilst threatening death on the person she loves when she has his slave collar around her neck! She should have been suspicious of him, though, when he told her that he gave the fashionable beauty guru Grisha over to the Queen as a 'gift'. What the fuck! That would definitely set alarm bells in my head! 
 Her obsession with beauty annoyed the fuck out of me. Boo Hoo, I cannot be an amazing Grisha powered person because I am not pretty enough! Cry me a river! She has magical sunlight Mary-Sue-extra-special-power-ness flying out of her at least two times before that and yet she can't have the power because of the way she looks! Okay... And the Most Beautiful Girl There, other than the one who makes everyone beautiful, is some total crazy snarly bitch of course. Because beautiful women are never nice. 
 Thinking of this, actually, none of the women are nice. And this is something that personally offends me; the first Nadia I ever remember reading about in a book turns out to be an unremarkable jealous bitch! Come on... But yeah, Nadia and her friend and the snarly Grisha girl are all bitches. The woman teacher, even though she turns out to be good and a caring mother in the end is also a horrible and judgemental bitch to Alina, even when she's helping her! Also, even the beautiful woman who makes people beautiful is not that nice; in the end it is 'for the best' that the Darkling take over and kill people for power, and does something questionable and probably harmful to the Queen (who is also a bitch) in order to gain more power. Power that no woman has! The men- specifically the fucking Darkling- hold it all over them! 
 Amongst all of this moaning of the main character, there is not much time for the actual story! I wanted to hear more about these.... Volcra? They sounded kinda interesting. I wanted more description of the world around her, not more description of the bitchiness of people like Nadia. But she was locked in the same palace for a lot of the time, so there wasn't much description of the world beyond. There wasn't even description of it when she was outside the palace, on the run or something! It just didn't let me connect and imagine the story much, which is disappointing. 
 Apparently the second and third books are better, so I guess I will read them, but still mainly because the covers are enticing, and they are so easy to read, it won't take up much of my precious time. There are so many issues with these books, and I hope that they are lessened in the next books!