As you can tell by the 5 stars, I deeply enjoyed this book, though it took me a little while to settle into liking it. At first I thought the Dragon was just horrible and cruel and it was just going to be a story about how he makes people miserable, but it grew from there, though he stayed true to character. The growth in Agnieszka is believable and inspiring, and even when she gets stuck, she's not overly bleak, which I think helped balance some of the darker themes and characters in the story. I found the writing a bit stilted in places--the words just didn't come together for me, but it was only a few phrases in total that threw me, not enough to taint the delight.