I liked D, though I got a bit frustrated with not knowing his name.  I really wanted to learn his name.  His character progression sort of reminds me of a lot of epic fantasies, where the hero sort of blooms as the story progresses.  He’s a bit caustic, callous, and a bit unlikable at the beginning, but the layers of crap his life had left upon his mind and soul just seem to peel away, leaving someone I was happy to root for.

Then there was Cassandra.  Cassandra is a total sweetheart, and someone you can’t help but want to protect.  Like a little baby bird that’s fallen from its nest, or a kitten who’s lost its mommy.

The author does an admirable job with eliciting the feel of someone caught in the drudgery of everyday life, caught and oppressed by it.  It’s easy to not only empathize but experience his frustration, and hunger for something more.

I found fewer things to dislike in this book.  Still felt it could have been edited better, and I’d love to remove almost every instance of the word “that.”  The plot was a little simple, and I had a hard time imagining the hate the bad guy must have been experiencing to do what he did.  I thought it strange that the chief warden was hinted at being Middle Eastern, and yet women in those regions would be unlikely to hold any position that would qualify them for such a position (as the author hinted at).  Also, the author states that Quintus was named that because he was the fifth son (quintus means fifth).  However, Quintus is only about 600 years old, putting his birth at the end of the Roman Empire.  Romans stopped using given names to indicate placement in family (i.e. fifth son) around 200 A.D..  I had looked up Roman naming systems earlier for other reasons, which is why I knew that, though it only took a few minutes of research to find it.

All in all, I liked this book.  The plot was simplistic, as I said, but I found the book to be more about a man’s personal journey of discovery.  D needed to find himself, and he did.  Quite brilliantly, in fact.