This was not my favorite in the ZA series... honestly, that probably goes to the first few books. This one was good, it progressed the story, but not enough actually happened for how many pages it contains. This is a looooooong and drawn out way of giving us 300 pages worth of really good content, in my opinion. That said, you can't continue the series without it, so be prepared to get a little long in the tooth around the middle portion especially. I said what I said...