I'd purchased this book years ago after reading a glowing review, but it did not live up to the hype. The plot wasn't anything new (Naomi Novik's Uprooted and T. Kingfisher's The Seventh Bride both do it better, even if those are more adult and less YA, but only just), and once again when reading YA I thought "WHY is YA so horny?" Every other sentence was about the softness of someone's skin or the way someone's strong jawline catches the light. I get that young adult novels are aimed at people experiencing puberty who are pretty horny, but I've read so much YA that has good romantic longing passages that aren't "just horny" that this book exasperated me to no end, and I wound up skimming the last third of the book just to finish (and I didn't lose the plot, because most of that was breathy glances and descriptions of adolescent longing). This is a miss for me across the board.