Fair warning: slightly ranting review, read at your own risk. 
 First, the general review: 
 I really liked it! Borrowed it from the library, but considering buying it and the rest of the series. There's quite a lot of action from start to finish, which I think makes up for the slower character development... or in some cases complete lack of development, but if you're looking for a quick-paced YA high-ish fantasy, this is it. My main beef was with the religious/magic system, which seems to be based on some combo of Catholicism and some kind of pink-toy-aisle idea of sparkly things = power... shiny gemstones implanted in your belly button make you special? Really? But I know I'm being a grumpy cynic here, and a little eye-rolling over this doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the book all THAT much, so whatevs. 
 Now for the ranty bit: 
 I've read a lot of criticism of the way the character loses some weight as she grows into the heroine she's meant to be. On the one hand, that's usually a fair criticism to make. Weight loss as personal growth (physical makeover as mental makeover) can come across as lazy and can result in readers losing that feeling of personal connection to the character -- when it is done poorly. I don't think it was done poorly in this case, for 2 reasons. 
 The 1st is that we're not seeing Jabba the Hutt miraculously morphing into Kate Moss. Elisa loses some weight, yes, but she's still a bigger girl. She gains some wilderness/war survival skills, but she's still kind of a klutz too. She doesn't just magically transform into her society's version of a perfect princess overnight, and she probably never will. She's the same person she was at the beginning of the book, just with way more life experience. 
 This ties in with the 2nd reason, which is that she still likes food, but her relationship with it has changed. In the beginning, at several points throughout the book actually, Elisa turns to food for comfort. She likes food and pays attention to it in the same way that other characters might pay attention to music or clothing (and so the reader gets quite a bit of description to go along with that) but she's also compulsive about it. We see that when she gets a chance to be useful and to concentrate on something at which she excels, food holds less power over her. By the end of the book, she still likes food -- she comes right out and says it -- but she's also found a purpose and therefore something to do besides self-soothing by means of pastry. 
 So that's my 2 cents.