For a moment there, I thought that the Grandfather was in on it too. 
 This was such a gripping novel. From the first page to the last. 
 I am still trying to grasp my way around the way Cassel's brothers behaved and what they did. The abuse of Maura was....disturbing to say the least, but believable. And the way she felt after she left Phillip too. 
 And the authors words through Cassel were mind blowing. 
 I had some difficulty at the beginning, because Cassel doesn't really bother to differ our world from the world in the book, but once you get your head around it, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride, because Casses certainly didn't. 
 I hated the Mother. I hate her guts. And hate both Cassel's brothers. 
 Throughout most of the novel, I felt so sorry for Cassel. I didn't even like Lila, she's just as much as power hungry as Anton and Phillip and Barron. She managed to use Cassel's guilt and affection for her as her tools. I liked Audrey better. She seemed to really like/love Cassel, because she was able to notice through all the 'con' he put out even for her and realize, at least a little, what he really did. And yet, she liked him for it. 
 Which leaves us with Sam, the Grandfather(Desi) and Danica and Cassel. 
 Cassel is not an easy person to like. He has struggled his whole life to be a good person, and yet he enjoys the con so much, he's not a good person, and may never be. But he knows it. I like that about him. 
 What I didn't expect was how little Cassel thought about all the people he killed after the platform-train-ride. I expected him to think about it more after everything went down, but he didn't, it just rolled off of him, so may be he deserves what his mother did. 
 It's a very complicated, goes-to-your head story. One of the best YA I've ever read.