That book I couldn't put down--

I finished it. So, I figure I ought to tell y'all what I thought about the whole thing. I never could put it down.

And the little things that bothered me so much at the beginning of the book? Not so much as I got into it. I got used to "the blonde" popping up to do things, I guess. The near-caricature-ness of the characters began to change. The dumb one wasn't so dumb as she seemed--though she's still got a LOT of room for growth, this is apparently only the first book of a series--and the "too-good-to-be-true" one wasn't. The evilly-evil one stayed over-the-top evil, but--well, I'll try not to be spoiler-y.

In the end, I liked the book. There were things I wish had been done differently--some people died that I wish hadn't, things like that--but this is an epic fantasy. People die in epic fantasies, and sometimes it takes a REALLY long time for character growth to occur. Sometimes I don't have the patience to wait for that growth--but we'll see.

The Night Holds the Moon was a pretty good read. The central character--though this follows epic fantasy pattern by having more than one POV character--is something of a wanton, who is the "chosen" of a goddess, by being the one who can play the magic flute, and when she plays it, things happen. Weird things. She's kind of a go-with-the-flow girl, who tends to be somewhat gullible, and perhaps trusts unwisely. She's not really into politics, so when politics get all stirred up around her, she lets other people take care of things. There's a cross-country trip, magic, betrayal, politics, death--you name it, it's in here. Lots of twists, more than one of which surprised me. Pretty good stuff. Give it a try.