This book just wasn't my cup of tea. The writing was extremely well done, but I just couldn't get past a few things and did not finish. I tried really hard to continue but realized I was dreading having to read instead of looking forward to it. 
 Not only was the pace too slow for my taste, but I also didn't connect well with the characters. I got tired of trying to figure out how to pronounce names and found there to be too many words that I needed to look up. I love that authors sometimes throw in a few new vocab words here and there but I felt as if I had to look up words on a regular basis. 
 To each their own, as they say, so if you like YA fantasy novels that read more like an adult fantasy novel this might be the book for you.