The beginning and the end of this book were both fantastic. The magic system is a lot of fun. The characters were interesting and their interactions were entertaining. The problem was in the middle. A large chunk of this book takes place with the main character in a magical trap, which is not a problem in an of itself, but the fact that during this huge chunk of the book, she does not actually interact with other "real" characters, just the magical avatars of them. It was a slog through that part of the book, which as I say was not small. If she was in this trap with some other characters, and we got to see them interact, then it would have been more forgivable. As it was, it was still a pretty good read. I would not discourage anyone from reading it.