I was skeptical of this book, as it is one of the more difficult Printz books to find and the second of a duology, and the first of the pair was not in the university library where I found this one. It holds up on its own well, though. The only time I really wondered if reading the first would have helped was after Laura's visit to the Depot. I found her character really distant and unreadable after that. Some of it makes some sense with the resolution, but I think we could have had more to go on. I didn't love the world or the characters, but I liked them, and stayed up late last night to find out what happened. 3.5 stars, because I really still can quite decide.