I tried to read this book while in grade school. But the book's vocabulary and concepts were too difficult to understand (even with a dictionary). Maybe I was dumb, who knows? Now twenty years later, I just finished reading this book from cover-to-cover. It's an interesting book, but the ending is SUPER-abrupt. I expected a show-down between the forces of good and evil. But the story literally came to a screeching halt with the usual "love conquers all." Well, I'm not saying that love is a bad thing, don't get me wrong. I just expected a much better ending.