This book finally made me like Holden. Up until this point he was just annoying me. Now I think he served a really necessary literary function but I was always annoyed at him. Now for the first time I was entirely on his side through the whole thing. I could feel every step of his pain and struggle and worth and stress. This books is not a relaxing read at all and mostly just made me so tense the whole time. The ability of the authors to just keep finding ways to make things ever more terrible was really just impressive at some point. Usually the ever increasing stakes gimmick is just that—an annoying gimmick I quickly get tired of because eventually the stakes don’t seem real. But the tension was always kept just right and the drama always spot on. This has been my favorite addition to the series yet.