I loved everything about this book and this says a lot for me in general because I have a very love hate relationship with YA. This story actually breaks away from the very recent YA formula that I noticed has popped up in the genre. What is also a super big plus is that this is perfect for teen Boys, that's not to say that this cannot be enjoyed by girls or even adults but we have to admit that there is a serious lack of YA books geared towards teen boys who enjoy reading. Another huge plus for me is there is basically no romance in this, there is the tiniest love story but it is so far from being the focus that it might even feel nonexistent to some its more along the lines of 'this kid has crush on this kid', but it doesn't go past that and over take the story and it's such a nice change.

In this we have action, giant mechanical sky serpents, politics and so much more, it was phenomenal from start to finish. Not once did I feel like the story was dragging or that any of characters were suffering from lack of personality or depth. Gregson also had a very intricate hierarchy system that was broken into multiple layers and it's so easy to grasp and understand but also so very intriguing. I loved the idea of each of the Skylands having its own type of fighting style that was actually shown to us. I enjoyed the commentary on the different social structures, which was basically how the rich will purposely keep the poor weak to prevent them from moving up. I liked how Gregson had Conrad learn this aspect of life and how it didn't take him long to figure out how the system was built to punish those who already had nothing. The way Gregson portrayed this in the plot makes it easy for young readers to grasp and personally I think it's important for them to learn this. The politics of this are also very easy to grasp while being intricate and very well thought out. There are few threads and having Conrad learn what is being kept from the public while also in his own way participating in keeping this information from the public was intriguing.

Conrad is an amazing main character, he goes from having everything to nothing and has to work his way back up to prove himself to his uncle, the person who took everything from him. He is standoffish and prefers to do everything on his own, insists that he doesn't need any friends, and has mega trust issues. He also has a lot of internal conflict about the choices he makes because his parents both tried to raise him in two different ways. Seeing him grow through the story was extremely satisfying, and I am looking forward to seeing what choices and how he makes those choices in follow up books play out. Now I will say by the end of the book my favorite character was Pound, the growth that this boy goes through is phenomenal and when I say the last like 10 pages of this story sent me on a rollercoaster of emotions and crying was absolutely present! Whatever is in store for this series my son better not be harmed or killed or anything, I will riot if anything happens to him. The best part about the characters in general though is that you never forget that these are 16 year old kids. They are going through horrific situations and are being tasked with jobs that technically they shouldn't be given but seeing as the state of their worlds situation they kind of have no options but to enlist kids, but the fact that Gregson made sure to be like "hey don't forget these are kids, not adults" was amazing, I don't know if anyone has noticed but a lot of YA books with 16 year olds feel more like they are 25, so I genuinely enjoyed that at times I was reeling from situations because I knew some of the events they were going through was extremely heavy and Gregson shows how that affects some of them.

I usually don't enjoy stories that involve a school system of some sort and while this does have a "training" school for hunters which is the group Conrad gets picked for, I will say it was entertaining and I did not hate it, I had questions and concerns as to why the adults were putting them through this but I still enjoyed it. I do feel like their system is flawed though since they talk about how many Hunters die just in the training sessions alone and I just think to myself, "well your system is.... not exactly smart". There is action present throughout the entire story, from fist fights to battle scenes to the unimaginable take down of a creature, every single action scene was satisfying. There are traitors on multi0ple sides, and frankly one had me bamboozled. The final action scene is explosive and reveals so much and builds up the anticipation for the follow up books.

I am without a doubt excited to continue with this story and this is a book I will be owning for my own personal collection at some point. Give it a shot, you will not be disappointed.