First of all, the packaging and design of this book is gorgeous. Seriously. I understand why the publisher threw so much money into publicity. It's innovative and beautiful. 
 I also really enjoyed the story as a whole. There were sections that were absolutely beautiful, and moments where I yelled or gasped at loud. It kept me guessing, and the design was very powerful in specific sections. 
 I'm not giving this one the full five stars for a couple reasons: 
 1. The story gets a little caught in the form sometimes. It would be hard not to in such a design-heavy book. Though I still blew through it, there was sections that were a little slow because the design/form was so heavy. 
 2. For a book that is unrelenting and absolutely brutal for the majority of the plot, the ending was too neat for me. It felt too happy, mostly because of one specific revelation at the very end of the book. I'll hide that in spoilers, but I think the story would have progressed better in the next two books if this one plot point had not changed. 
 (view spoiler)[ We find out Ezra is actually alive in the last couple pages of the book. I was disappointed. I was never really invested in Ezra as a character to begin with, but his death was really a driving force for Kady, and I felt like it created a cliche, neat ending to discover he had been alive all along. I think it would have been far more interesting to have Kady on a revenge path in the next two books driven by Ezra's death. Now everything feels like it's following the path of typical YA books now, which undermines what the book achieved overall with the storytelling and design work. (hide spoiler)] 
 Overall, I'm glad I read it. I'll read the next one, but I'm not convinced I'll buy it at this point.