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"Poisoned, pursued and living with a psychopath. Not what I would consider the good life. Death has its perks."

This is to hard to rate. The originality deserves a full four, but the the issues I had with the writining make it impossible for me to grant it. 3.75 because I enjoyed it a lot? But rounded down to three because it would have taken so little for it to be better, and that leaves a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth.

�The story had me hooked practically immediately. I knew I would be swept up in it the moment I realized it was about this girl who had to train as a food taster. I don't know what I expected, exactly; probably something a bit different from this, even though I could not pinpoint how, but nonetheless I enjoyed it immensely. The plot, while a little naive and predictable at times, never fail in holding the reader's attentions.

•I have a special symapthy for our main character, Yelena. She is no assassin, no fighter, no feisty creature and she has no problems accepting it, and it's so tremendously refreshing that I loved her from the start. During the story, she learns to fight and to stand up for herself, but she never leaves behind her aura of innocence, so to say, of tranquillity, and this, paired with a couple of interesting things she finds out about some peculiar abilities of hers, leads me to think her true talents lie in something different, for once, from her fists or a sword. Don't get me wrong, kick-ass heroines are wonderful (when they are properly fleshed-out as characters), but I love it so much more when a woman proves she can fight just as well even if armed only with her mind (for further information, see The Winner's Curse).

�The other characters may not be particularly rounded nor deep, but they do their job and prove pleasant companions throughout the book. Valek is fabulous,(view spoiler)[ even though he could work a little better on that declaration because, honestly, I found it a bit lame; anyway, he won me over when he didn't refuse to kill Yelena when ordered to: finally a man of honour. I'm not so sadistic as to want him to commit murder-suicide, naturally, but it would have been so tragic. (hide spoiler)]. Ari and Janco are adorable, (view spoiler)[and I ship them (hide spoiler)]. I (kind of?) liked the Commander's backstory, but I think it lacked development. A story that important can't be dismissed with a couple of lines here and there. I wanted to know what exactly had happened and way, and I very much hope we will receive further clarification in the following installments.

•Now, what really, really bothered me and the reason why I'm not rating the book four stars: the writing. It is not horrible or bad or unpleasant in the very real sense of the word, but it is extremely flat, unemotional (which, depending on the case, can be a remarkable perk, but here it is not), monotone, which negatively reflected on the characters' personalities an attitudes. They seem to be incapable of distinguishing between events needing strong reactions and mundane actions, because their response is always dull, somehow, as if coated or encased in ice, as if set in advance to "act as usual" instead of "act accordingly". I don't know how to explain myself better than this. I know this particular flaw is to blame on the writing because this isn't the first time I encounter it in a book, and every single time it annoys me and spoils my enjoyment like few other things can.

âž½I can't get over this last point simply because stories are nothing without emotion, to me, so the issue is very subjective and personal. For this reason, it is more than possible, and maybe even likely, that for many of you it won't be that much of a problem; in that case, feel free to consider I rated the book four stars and dive into it, because it's definitely, definitely worth a try. Strongly recommended.