Here is the setup: we follow Agnieszka, a 17-year-old girl living in a small community. Every ten years, some dude named The Dragon comes to their town and takes (but nicely) one girl to go with him to the tower nearby. The reason is very fuzzy for everyone. They know that he never kills them, as they come out of the tower ten years after they were taken, but never return to stay at home, and all the women say that he never touches them. But, everything else is unknown. 

We have some haunted woods, a potentially corrupt kingdom, and even a dash of a love story. I don't want to give away too much, so I will leave it at: Agnieszka figures out she isn't just some village girl who set out to do very village things like marry and have babies and work. We watch Agnieszka really develop throughout this book, alongside the VERY interesting plot.

Here is what I liked: I loved this magical system. I truly felt like Novik did a good job at setting up the world. I think it would have been very cool to see a map and some other features of the country and the Wood, but nonetheless, I loved it. It gave some great fairy tale vibes (I think this was semi-influenced by a fairytale-like story). Additionally, I enjoyed the majority of the characters. I thought Agnieszka was fantastic, even for a supposed 17/18-year-old. I also LOVED the relationship she had with her best friend Kasia, who was a prominent character throughout this novel. Their friendship felt like found family and made me so happy throughout. I also didn't mind the added romance sub-plot as much as others, BUT I do have a qualm, which I outline below. Lastly, while I still think it had some Young Adult elements (e.g., the main character is a bit angsty, can do a lot of things without trying, etc.), it didn't feel overly Young Adult to me, especially in the world-building and plot development, which is ALWAYS a nice surprise.

Here is what I didn't like: I know this was written in about 2015. This means that it was the time of teenagers and love interests who were centuries older. Yuck. That is the case here, and I just think it is so unnecessary to have that huge age gap difference, even in a fantasy world. If you are going to do the big age gap because a character is over 100 but looks 25-30, FINE, but make the other character older and more mature, preferably more than 25! It's very grooming-like, and I simply didn't like it. Thankfully, the romance in this is NOT the main story at all and is quite honestly only on a couple of pages. The main male character was also mean to Agnieszka for about 98% of the book, but for some reason, I was able to read through the lines on that one (which is odd for me; I'm quite literal when it comes to grumps). However, I could see why people didn't like the romance in this novel. 

Lastly, the pacing felt a tad bit off. While I LOVED the action in this book, it did seem like there was ALWAYS action, leading to the inevitable doom of other character development and world-building. I think I still had a few questions about the world and what happened after I finished about 90% of the book, and I felt like Novik spent maybe just too much time diving into the action scenes and not enough time on some other development. This was just a minor qualm since I think she still managed to do everything pretty well. 

This read like 3-3.5 stars for me throughout the majority of the book because of the pacing, but I really, really enjoyed the ending. It was maybe just a teensy bit rushed, BUT I enjoyed it a lot - a connection with nature and trees and just ah! It was really fun. So, I decided to go up to a 4. Plus, I was immersed the whole time, waiting to see what would happen. I truly did enjoy this, minus some minor qualms, and I look forward to reading more from Novik.