I like Garth Nix so I picked this up even though I'm not the middle school audience it was written for. It was fun. As I say, it was written for middle school readers, so I blasted through it pretty fast, and its very clearly one installment of a longer series. To me it felt a little more like a chapter than a book. Its still very well written and doesn't insult my intelligence. The elements from folklore were used in a way that was fun, clever, and didn't bog down the story. I will probably pick up the sequels.
