This helped me a lot during my current reading slump, it was sooo much fun! - I loved Mona, she is wonderful. She's funny and creative and just wants to make baked goods forever. Relatable btw, who doesn't want to bake things and chill? I liked that while she grew over the course of the story, she still stayed true to herself throughout the whole book.

And that the message was: This girl shouldn't have had to do all this instead of her being happyto be called a hero in the end.

The other characters were also great, like Monas uncle and aunt, Spindle, the gingerbread man ... bottom line: the cast was entertaining and loveable through and through.
I loved the creativity and chaos of the magic system. The magic talents don't follow any pattern that I could grasp. I got that there's elemental wizards who can manipulate water or air for example and that those are typically deemed the most powerful. But everything else felt pretty random. Surprisingly I found that to be very fun instead of a little frustrating. Probably because this randomness wasn't used to find too convenient solutions for problems. 

This book also contains a lot of important elements around how the people in charge who're supposed to keep you safe might not always be safe for everyone (in this case wizards in particular).
All in all I liked this story a lot and I'm glad that I finally followed the popular opinion that T. Kingfisher is great. This will not be my last book by her.