One of the things I loved about this book is that it felt so different from most anything else I have been reading lately. The world structure, beliefs, and magic all felt unique while still feeling organic. And the characters! The fact that Abercrombie made me love these characters is a feat unto itself. The story revolves through the perspective of several different people, and none of them are particularly likable upon first meeting. However, he never apologizes for these characters. He never makes excuses for their behavior, never tries to justify it somehow. They just are what they are, and this approach makes them more human. None of them are static; they all go through changes throughout the story, and I found the more I hated a character at the beginning, the more touched I was when you could see them evolving. 
 The only downside to these characters for me was that I had a little trouble in the beginning getting drawn into the story. It takes a little time to start to care about a torturer or an elitist narcissist, but once I got there, I couldn't put the book down. There's also a fair amount of humor. Not in a slapstick or mocking way, but just a genuine, natural humor that broke up the darkness of the story and often had me giggling to myself. I am very excited to see what the rest of the series has in store! 
 Also, my commute is very long, so I usually swap back and forth between reading and listening to audio, and the narrator (Steven Pacey) is AMAZING. He managed a different accent for every character (and there are a LOT of characters), and his delivery is spectacular. Towards the end of book, I started listening to the audio even at home because it was so great.