Who are the Grisha: the people born with the ability to manipulate different elements.

Love: There is not a love triangle even though there seems like there will be. By the end it’s very definite who she wants to be with although it might not be who you want.

Characters: I loved most of the characters. Alina, the main character, is fantastic. She’s not really whiny or indecisive. She thinks things through, which is great. She’s also very caring. Of course, she does have her flaws. Once she makes it to the palace, she REALLY cares about the opinions of others, so she doesn’t want to stand out -- annoying. Her self esteem is kind of low but is kind of expected considering she’s in love with her best friend, Mal, who doesn’t show any interest at all. She’s also pretty physically weak and was described as kind of sickly. I liked how that came into play later on in the novel.
Mal: I was not a fan of him. First of all, Alina is his best friend but he doesn’t seem to care about that at all. He does develop more throughout the book, but I’m still just kind of meh about him.
Darkling: I loved him from the beginning. I want a novella about him!! He's wonderful.

There were a few of immature Grisha girls that were “friends” and one was an “enemy” of Alina. Pretty childish. They’re not around much so that wasn’t super annoying.

I thoroughly enjoyed the reading experience. I was frustrated, happy, shocked. I didn’t want to put it down. There were a few instances where I was thinking "no why’d you do that the book is going down hill now," but Leigh definitely knew what she was doing. Even now a week or two after reading it I’m still thinking about it. I just recently started the second book, but I’m hesitant because the first one was so good.