This book was recommended to me because of my absolute love and adoration for Diana Wynne Jones and Patricia Wrede. I was pretty amazed I had never heard of it (or of the author), as she was a fairly prolific writer and seems to be perfectly up my alley. I went in with pretty high expectations, and while I wasn't "let down", per se, it didn't grab me nearly as much as I expected. 
 The premise is amazing - as a young teen you are wandering through a bookstore and run across one of those bland career books, "So you want to be a ...". But instead of the normal doctor, scientist, writer - you see wizard. What kid wouldn't immediately check this book out of the library?? 
 I think one of the things that bothered me with this book was the character development. I felt like I went through 400 pages and ended up with vague ideas of who all of the characters were, just glimmers of their personalities and motives. It did not come across as though it was being written as even remotely stand-alone, and maybe that was why. This is the first in a series of 9 books, and I imagine we will get to know the characters much better throughout the books. I really would have loved to know more about the "Lone Power," also known as "You-Know-Who" (remind you of anyone??), and the "Starsnuffer." What were his motives? How did he get to where he is now? Why was he given this Otherworld? Maybe that gets looked into a bit more as the series progresses, though. 
 One thing I loved about this book was the writing. You can definitely tell if a YA book was written before 2000; the writing is so much more complex than most YA books today. I really like that YA books weren't always so ...well, "dumbed down," for lack of a better term. (I knooooowww there are still plenty out there that are not, but compared to the likes of Madeline L'engle? Diana Wynne Jones? Diane Duane? Patricia Wrede? etc? etc? Puhleaze.) 
 I put this book at 3.5 stars for me. The first 200 pages, while good, took a while for me to get through, whereas I flew through the last 200 (in just a few hours!). I thought I would be okay ending my foray into the series after this one, but after reading reviews of the second, Deep Wizardry, I've added it to my TBR list and will definitely add it to my shelf someday soon.