Is definitely a bridging novel and somewhat lacklustre. The five main characters have to work on survival both magically and physically, the dice are loaded against them with the society they live in and things keep getting harder. Somewhat repetitive and you can see where the characters could have learned something by talking to each other but the biggest problem they all have is who to trust when they're all pitted against each other. If this was a standalone I probably wouldn't keep it but I'll wait until after reading the sequence before deciding about whether or not to keep them.