I just reread Book of a Thousand days (which I shall affectionately call B1000 from now on.)I wanted to share a few of my thoughts about it. I won't give away any spoilers (I hate it when people do that.) All right here goes... 
 Shannon Hale's B1000 wasn't my favorite of her books. 
 The culture was not unlike Mongolian culture from back in the day. A young mucker girl is orphaned and is forced to go to the city of Titor's Garden to look for work. She is made to serve as Lady Saren's maid. Dashti must learn to serve her lady loyally wherever she chooses to go (and some places she would rather not) even to the point of giving up what is closest to her heart. 
 Plot wise I though the story was decent. I found the beginning was slow but it picked up a great deal in the end. The thing with this book, is that I didn't like the characters as much as I liked Hale's other characters. I mean, they were okay, but they didn't have the right feel to them. Dashti was annoying, almost too perfect, Tegus was... was, was... Saren was an interesting character, and despite her irritating ways, was my favorite. 
 In a nutshell, the hold on me wasn't very strong. It was a decent book and it was a good read, but not a favorite.