Now, I've read books by Naomi Novik before, so I was expecting to like this. But I was not really prepared for how *much* I was going to like this. Sort of a Howl's Moving Castle as filtered through a Polish fairy tale sort of thing, where the wood (sorry, the Wood) is legitimately evil and disturbing. 
 The non-completely-standard conclusion definitely worked for me too. Very vague kinda-maybe-spoiler: (view spoiler)[At the possible risk of sounding like I might be stereotyping, I feel like that kind of "resolve the conflict by finding the wounded humanity in your enemy instead of by explodifying them the very hardest" resolution is something that female creators tend to do more/better, at least so far. A good argument for the importance of including more diverse creators as well as more diverse characters if so. (hide spoiler)] 
 And yet, Novik doesn't skimp on the exciting dramatics and action, either! It's just so well executed. Just a true instant favorite.