By any reasonable consideration I should have hated this book. It has pretty much every trope I loathe. It is a dark, dire, bleaker than bleak, grim novel full of teenagers getting murdered on-page with the worst possible body horror excesses and a big rapey villain. 
 I didn't hate it. 
 I don't know why, but I tore through this book in no time at all. The writing was fantastic and fresh, the story exciting, and I finished it in just a few hours. 
 Now that I've finished reading it, I'm sort of embarrassed that I enjoyed it as much as I did. I don't know why this book works so well (it's kind of the hunger games meets faeries meets twilight) but it does. If you have the stomach, it's one hell of a ride. 
 Now I'm actually considering going back and reading his trilogy about cannibalism. Heaven help me.