3.5 stars. 
 A good solid start to this series, but I'm just not head over heels in love with it the way I was for The Girl of Fire and Thorns. But I suspect I might be by book 3, because one thing I loved about Carson's previous trilogy was the character growth along the way. 
 I really like Lee, she's a great main character. But I never felt particularly connected to anyone else in the story until close to the end. There's this whole found family bit right at the very end that almost had me in tears and I loved it a lot, though. 
 Still, parts of it felt really slow and dry--but maybe that's the point, with the whole traveling to California thing. But it lagged for me in a way I don't remember with her other books. 
 I appreciated how Carson never shied away from the hard-hitting realities. The journey is not an easy one and people die, some of them shockingly. And despite my quibbles with it, I'm definitely looking forward to book 2!