Book Review: Ash by Malinda Lo

This will eventually be a review of Malinda Lo's novel Ash, which I enjoyed very much. First, however, I'm going to talk about a bunch of other stuff, which may at first seem entirely unrelated. And then I'm going to talk about Ash in a way that may seem to imply that I didn't like it. So I want to be clear from the start that this is a review of Ash and that I did like it. Just so we're clear.

( This is going to take a while, so let's save if for those who are really interested. )