These opening chapters have a distinctly dark tone, a more malevolent fantasy setup than a typical adventure tale. The insulated island community seems ruled by fear - and perhaps rightly so - but it promises to lead to even darker doings than the death we see in these initial pages. Fans of the Wood in Naomi Novik's Uprooted and the distorted island in Wilder Girls will likely enjoy this book, with its twisted depiction of nature.