This novel took me forever to finish, and I can't quite figure out why. The premise was great, the plot fast paced and interesting, the characters well imagined, and yet I kept finding myself putting it down and not wanting to pick it back up. It may be that Karen's narrative style and dialect made reading her story a chore, or that it took too long for the major action to start, or I don't know but I was just more bored by this story than I expected. Despite that, I definitely want to read more Elizabeth Bear, I'm just disappointed that this novel didn't quite work for me.