This is a little hard for me to pin down because there were points in the story where I thought about DNFing. Zelu was a good main character, but I had trouble connecting with her family because they were always so negative toward her and any decisions she made. It's possible this is a cultural thing that I just can't connect with, because if my family was constantly telling me I'm a disappointment, I wouldn't want to talk to them anymore. That made it hard for me to understand why Zelu still had so much love for her family even though they hardly ever supported her.

I'm also more inclined to read scifi/fantasy over general lit-fic, so I found the scifi aspect of the novel more interesting than the lit-fic parts. Some of the lit-fic parts really dragged on to the point where I couldn't understand where the scenes were meant to be going or how they were actually furthering the plot along.

Because of the ending, though, (which I absolutely loved) it makes the whole thing a little more interesting. I might re-read this at some point knowing what I know now and see if I enjoy certain parts a bit more.