The book was a good overall concept, but there were just WAY too many characters that were mentioned in all parts of the book. I'd say there were close to 15 supporting characters, that were possibly supposed to be just background characters but they just had too big a role to just be cast off as a background. It was incredibly confusing at points to figure out who was who. The writing itself was alright, nothing fancy. I wasn't impressed at all, and was expecting more from an author who won a Newbery Honor.