Going from heavy lifting reading of dark places to young adult reading of dark places is a bit distorting. It's like going from hiking mountains to a jaunt in some hilly woods. Takes a bit to get used to. ;)

Ah, the story of someone who is wronged, a caste system that is broken, and the ever present martyrs that catalyze a change. I thought I was entering a familiar trope--wouldn't you?

We go from that to a bodies transmogrification to something more familiar to Hunger Games, maybe in that it's just a wooded game--which is, of course, rigged, which of course, the protagonist wants to break the living crap out of.

Go get'm tiger..er Reaper!

It read fast, very fast, very easy, and I barked a few laughs here and there. When things go well though there is a palatable pitfall you can taste coming, and they do. Time jumps and my brain sees montages, ponders what this would look like on a big screen--it'd probably work.

Being a series and a common threaded story you know, well you think you know, how this will end--and it does hit within the parameters, with a bit of a twist. I'm now sold on Darrow and want to see how he navigates the pitvipers of the Gold hierarchy. We want him to win but also we're not sure how he's going to handle the shovels of lies in relationships he's building. It's got that reality-tv hook in me, so onward we journey. :D To space and BEYOND!