It's A LOT better than Shadow and Bone, and compared to this book, Shadow and Bone felt amateurish. The beginning was kind of slow, and I was thinking, I'm almost done with a huge chunk of the book and why haven't they already broken into the place? It was written a lot better, it's a lot darker, aka it's pretty violent, among other things - I found myself cringing at one point, not to mention Kaz's secret plans hidden up his sleeve, which I liked the best. And the twist at the end... It also doesn't focus much on actual romance though, so it didn't clog the whole book.