Lately I've been tearing through books as fast as I can. This one made me stop and slow down. For the first time in a while, I honestly did not want to leave the world Stiefvater had created. It felt like a return to some of the supernatural YA fiction that I loved during my high school years, the stories that hooked me on the genre in the first place. The voice pulled me in and kept me there. 
 The blurb had me expecting a paranormal romance, albeit a better one than most I've read lately. While seeds of this were planted, this book was much, much more than that. And I appreciated every moment. I loved the characters created here. They were flushed out and real. I felt for them and cared about them. Their friendships warmed me. 
 I enjoyed the world created. There was magic, but it was magic that seemed to grow out of the wants and the needs of the characters. It wasn't making up for any lack in the characterization. It wasn't functioning as a backdrop for two characters to just make heart eyes at each other for pages on end. And the "real world" stakes always felt just as high as the magic, because they grew out of each other and complemented each other. 
 Knowing this was the first of a series, and there have been seeds very obviously planted for the rest of it, I was still satisfied with the internal arc of this novel. It didn't feel like it was simply set up for everything to come. 
 I eagerly await the next installment in this series.