Marco Bavelaar Bavelaar itibaren Taiwan, 新北市淡水區忠寮里 itibaren Taiwan, 新北市淡水區忠寮里

4.5 stars. Other reviews have covered the awesomeness of the writing, the heartbreakingness of the story, the believability of the characters. My favorite things were the humor that keeps you from getting so depressed that you have to stop reading and curl up in a ball (in that it reminded me of Speak) and the secrets that are kept from the reader and doled out slowly enough to enhance the suspense but quickly enough to avoid frustration. What didn't work as well for me (and resulted in minus half a star) was the jumping around in time. I've enjoyed this device in other stories and it worked fairly well in this book, but overall there was so much jumping that I sometimes lost touch with what was happening when. It might have been my failing as a reader, but it left me somewhat disconnected from each individual scene as we jumped in and out of it fairly quickly. The ending also fell a little bit flat after all the preceding drama--I wanted a bit more of a big blow-out. But those are all personal preferences and certainly won't stop me from highly recommending it to fans of intense emotions and the survival of totally sucky situations.