I loved this book! I read it from start to finish in about six hours. I loved the concept, the story, the characters. This reminded me of two of my all time favorite books - it was like the younger brother of China Mieville's Kraken, with the dark dysfunctional humor of American Gods. This was such an impressive debut novel! 
 That said, there are some issues that keep me from rating this five stars, and I always round down instead of up. The climax of the book came sooner than expected, and the last third or so seemed to lose the overall rhythm of the story. There were some big "magic" events, but the details and logic of those events were pretty fuzzy. I'll forgive a lot if something is awesome enough, and for the most part, that applies here ... but there were still a couple of times where the implausibility of the magic's repercussions interrupted my suspension of disbelief. 
 This is still one of my favorite reads of the year, and I really hope there's a sequel!